Final Fantasy 7 a novel
by QuantumPen
Summary: Chapter 6 is up! I know there's flaws in there somewhere, so read and review please, and please be SPECIFIC!
1. Mission Mako Reactor No 1

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Mission Mako Reactor No. 1

At a dilapidating church in the Sector 5 slums, a young lady quickly waters some of the flowers growing there. 

"It's been said that flowers can't grow in Midgar, but they don't seem to have any trouble blooming here," the flower lady quietly muttered to herself as she gathered a basket. Tossing her chestnut-colored hair, she stepped out into the cold, dirty streets of the vast metropolis of Midgar. Midgar is a huge city made of metal created by the architectural masterminds of Shinra Inc., who also happen to own and govern the city. When someone visits this mammoth of a metropolis, they can feel the heaving breaths of the city not like a warm, friendly pet, but more like a sleeping beast you would rather not awaken. A metal plate where the rich people live rises out of the ground, supported by several large pillars of stone. Those less fortunate were forced down to ground level fifty meters below the plate where pollution and violence ruled their lives.

At that precise moment, a train from the train graveyard at the Sector 7 slums was due to arrive at Mako Reactor No. 1. As the enormous black train pulled to a stop at the station, a black-haired man wearing a red bandana and worn camouflage leggings hopped off the top of the train and a girl with light brown hair swung off of the second car. Shinra guards hurried over to check out what the commotion was about. Upon seeing their attire, they immediately took a hostile stance.

"Hey, you there! Stop! We're-" Unfortunately, the guard didn't manage to finish his sentence as he suddenly found himself soaring through the air. With a sickening crack, his backbone snapped as he hit the side of the train and crumpled to the ground. The other guard, drawing a shock baton, didn't notice the girl delivering a roundhouse kick to his abdomen. Grunting, the guard dropped his baton and flew towards the train. Still alive, he reached for his gun, but at that moment, a heavy-set man, who wore a gun where his right forearm should have been, leapt out of the compartment, conveniently landing on the guard's neck.

"Good work, Biggs, Jessie," the mammoth man bellowed at his comrades without a glance at the fallen guards, "Hurry it up! We don' have all day ya know!" Motioning with his hand as a fat, pudgy man with a red cap clambered rather clumsily off of the train compared to the other two people, the other two rebels disappeared into the arch leading to the reactor area.

"Come on newcomer! We can't wait for ya!" yelled the man. A blond-haired youth somersaulted over the roof of the train and landed neatly onto the platform. He had the looks of a seasoned veteran. At first glance, he didn't look as if he were capable of drawing the enormous sword he was carrying, but if you looked carefully, you would notice that he had a lean but amazingly strong build. His eyes also had a kind of unusual glow in them, setting him apart from the others, and his face looked like it rarely showed expression of any sort. He wore a simple, heavy, midnight blue cloth cut off at the shoulders and a strange silver medallion several inches in diameter bound to the area under his pectorals. His leggings were just as plain, and his boots were a dull black, reflecting almost no light. Around his right forearm he wore an armlet. These clothes were obviously not for show, but for practicality in whatever he did for a living.

"Stop showin' off, you gotta hurry it up if ya want your money!" With that, the man with the gun arm ran off, leaving the blond youth on the platform. As the blond youth began to follow the guy, two Shinra soldiers ran out to confront him.

Despite the lean looks of the blond youth, he drew his enormous sword with ease and rushed towards the nearest guard. The two guards opened fire on the youth, but they couldn't really have hoped to bring down someone with only half his caliber. For one, their aim was terrible, for they could barely hold the gun in a professional fashion, switching grips while their guns rocked out of control. Second, the youth was ready for them. With amazing agility, the youth sprinted towards his adversaries so quickly that to the soldiers, he would have appeared to be a blur of blue. Yet, despite his adept fighting skills, a couple of stray bullets managed to find their mark. Fortunately for the youth, the bullets bounced off just before they hit him. The seemingly useless scrap of metal the youth wore on his arm. The two small flares where the bullets hit the invisible energy shield, generated by the youth's natural bodily defenses. They were the only signs where the inept gunmen had managed to hit their opponent. Quickly slicing through the tendons behind the knees, he brought two soldiers to their knees. The blond youth slammed the blunt side of his blade down onto the head of one guard. Unconsciousness was immediate, and concussion was inevitable. As the other opened his mouth to yell for help, he found the hilt of the enormous sword rammed into his mouth. Deftly twisting the blade, the soldier's teeth were easily broken. Right when he was about to howl in pain, the hilt was suddenly yanked out of his mouth and slammed between his eyes. The poor soldier's howl of pain became a feeble choke as he choked on his own blood in his last moments of consciousness.

Wiping the blood off of his sword blade and hilt with the incapacitated guards' clothes and sheathing his sword, the blond youth followed the path the others had taken to the station roof complex. Midgar's roofs were like a city in themselves. Everything wound and ran into everything else, creating an impossible maze. After taking a breathtaking glance down into the much cleaner streets of the top plate, Cloud found himself with the rest of the group except the gun arm guy gathered at a rusty chain gate, which led into the reactor area. He could even hear the steam pressure valves opening and closing, creating a pneumatic hiss every now and then. The dark-haired fellow, who happened to be the lookout, noticed the blond youth.

"Hey, newcomer, I didn't catch your name…"

"It's Cloud," the blond youth replied.

"Nice to meet ya, I'm-"

"I don't care what your names are. Once this mission's over, I'm outta here."

"I hear that you're ex-SOLDIER. It's not every day you see one of those teaming up with AVALANCHE."

"SOLDIER? Aren't they the enemy?" the girl cracking the access codes for the gate inquired.

"He _was_ in SOLDIER, Jessie. He's with us now." The dark-haired man answered. Suddenly, the big man with the gun arm appeared.

"Didn't I tell you not to move in a group? _Move it_!" the man bellowed at his troops as the girl broke the access codes and slid the gate open. Quickly, the rest of the gang dispersed into the reactor's main area. The man with the gun-arm stopped Cloud before he could get past.

"SOLDIER, huh? I don' trust ya!" Barret sneered as he took off. Cloud followed him to the reactor area, full of neon signs that almost nobody saw anyway. 

After Cloud entered the first room inside the reactor, the girl, dark-haired youth, and the big man with the gun arm were waiting for him. The big man, obviously the leader, bellowed, "You! Newcomer! You ever been in a reactor?"

"Yeah. After all, I did work for Shinra ya know." Cloud responded.

"Alright, then let's go. You're coming with me now."

"Sure, whatever."

"I'm Barret. Anything you gotta say, say it later."

"Me and Biggs got the access codes to the reactor," piped up Jessie, as Biggs punched in the access code for the first door, which clanked open as valves became depressurized.

"Biggs, you gotta stay and be lookout." Barret growled as Jessie punched in the second access code for the other door.

Quickly slipping into an elevator, Cloud pushed the button to make them rise up to the reactor level.

"Don't ya know, these Mako reactors are suckin' the life outta the planet. The planet's weakenin' Cloud, don't you care?" Barret told Cloud.

"All I care about is getting through this mission before the Roboguards show up." Cloud replied, as the elevator churned to a stop. Rushing out of the elevator, Cloud followed Barret and Jessie as they descended the stairs into the reactor area. Suddenly, beams of concentrated ion beams hit the steps before them. Unsheathing his enormous buster sword, Cloud slid down the railing, deflecting the ion beams with his blade and neatly chopped the cannon off and sent it flying over the railing.

"Come on Cloud! We gotta get the bomb set before SOLDIER comes and catches us!" yelled Jessie as she and Barret disappeared into the doorway leading to the reactor core. Cloud quickly followed them into the doorway. Once inside, Cloud leapt across the gaping portion of missing concrete onto the opposite ledge and climbing down an iron ladder aging with rust. Shinra obviously didn't care much for their maintenance crews. Coming off of the ladder, Jessie ran over to the other ladder and took her position, watching for anyone dumb enough to try and come after them. After running down that ladder, as it was sloped gently enough not to require actual climbing, Cloud and Barret climbed down yet another ladder, arriving at the pipes above the reactor gangplank. Following pipes, Cloud and Barret came down onto the last of the rusty ladders. Climbing down that final ladder, Cloud and Barret finally found themselves at the reactor core gangplank. Running across the bridge to the actual core, Barret noticed a shiny green ball, no larger than a bottle cap. After pointing this out to his partner, Cloud knelt and examined the green object, finally declaring it to be a piece of Recovery Materia. In absolute confusion, Barret inquired him about this specific Materia.

"What the hell is _this_ thing for?" Barret asked.

"We don't have time to play around, Barret. I'll tell you about it when we get back. We're in the middle of a critical aspect of the mission if you didn't notice. Unless, of course, you _want_ SOLDIER to come and catch us," Cloud responded tensely. He doubted anything would happen, but nobody ever lived very long underestimating the enemy. Barret simply shrugged stood aside and watched Cloud expectantly.

"OK, now set the bomb." Barret ordered.

"Shouldn't you do it?" Cloud asked.

"No, I gotta watch to make sure you don' pull nothin'." Barret spewed out. Shrugging, Cloud suddenly remembered something, something in the past about a reactor…

"What's wrong? Hurry it up!" Barret interrupted.

"What? Oh, sorry…" Cloud murmured as he knelt to set the bomb. After a few seconds, right after he initiated the twenty-minute countdown, A clear metallic ring echoed throughout the chamber. 

"Uh oh, something's here with us…" Cloud muttered as he drew his sword, preparing to annihilate whatever guarded Mako Reactor No. 1. In a split second, an enormous blood-red metal scorpion dropped to the railing with a sharp, clear clang and rose on its six thick legs of reinforced steel. At its full height, it towered over the two rebels, with two very businesslike rifles mounted onto its shoulders next to its head. Each was several feet long with a rather large hole at the end. There was no doubt that this machine would hit its target with guns like those. Behind it rose a scorpion-like tail, hence its name. However, instead of a sharp stinger, it had a high-power laser cannon attached. The head, if you could call it a head, possessed nothing but searching equipment. No doubt this machine was used to search and destroy. The "destroy" part was painfully obvious.

With a beam of light from its glowing eyes, it scanned the two unlucky men with its search scope. Not wanting to know what it was planning to do, Cloud quickly rushed at one of its legs, chopping down with his sword. As steel met steel, Cloud expected the leg to dent or crack, but instead, he felt a resonating shock as the blade rebounded back and knocked him across the floor. The resonating sound that had radiated from the connection still rang throughout the chamber.

"Damn, I should have thought the monster would have been reinforced with Mako Energy!" Cloud cursed. It meant that the fight would take longer than they originally thought it would, obviously not a good idea considering the bomb quietly ticking away in the background. Barret, noting the fact that the machine would not fall so easily, immediately aimed his right arm and opened fire. The metal scorpion reared on its hind legs, revealing huge rifles. It appeared to take careful aim and blasted huge shells at Cloud. Though they hit the ground before him, blasting two perfectly round holes in the platform, Cloud could actually feel the force of the blasts. These were substantially more powerful than the puny machine guns that the Shinra soldiers carried. Furiously, Cloud slid right in front of the metal scorpion and leaped up. As he came back down, He brought his buster sword hard down on the crown of the scorpion's head. He heard the grinding, tearing sound of metal, and knew that he had severely damaged his target's ability to sense them. The scorpion fired again, but this time it targeted Barret. Because of his bulging muscles, Barret's shield from his armlet, located at the base of his gun, could have easily taken the hit, but the force of the blast from the scorpion knocked him against the railing. Barret could feel the railing creaking from the amount of force applied on it by the shells. After a couple of bullets punched out one of its glowing eyes, Cloud saw the tail of the scorpion rise.

"Cease fire! The machine is set to use a powerful laser against us if we attack it now! Wait for the tail to go back down!" Shaking, the metal scorpion waited for the attack that never came. Barret rose and took careful aim. Cloud began to scan for the next place to cut. It was a tense moment, as neither the scorpion nor the rebels made their move. As soon as the tail came down, Cloud slashed at the belly underneath, cutting vital power sources as Barret blasted at the head, further mangling it and decreasing its ability to ascertain their locations. Stumbling around from the loss of power and hampered detection abilities, it nearly crushed Cloud. However, a soldier of his caliber wouldn't be caught dead taking an accidental hit from a stumbling, half-dead opponent. Soon, the machine froze, its systems failing one by one. Cloud quickly slammed a devastating blow directed towards the Mako tanks located under the belly. By severing the cables that fueled the terrifying machine, its shielding ability would be drastically decreased. The tank bounced once on the ground and flew over the railing into the glowing pools below. In the meantime, the scorpion began firing rapidly and aimlessly. Several of its shells came within three feet of the bomb, and one or two shots hit Barret in the chest. As one of the legs swung towards Cloud, the mercenary grabbed at the leg and hitched a ride on its back. Using its tail laser, the scorpion blasted at the annoying target on his back. Cloud dove for the base of the tail, but the laser still managed to knick his body. Luckily, the shield managed to hold, but the backlash from the machine's erratic movements knocked Cloud loose. Grabbing at the tail base, Cloud barely managed to hold on. If he were to be thrown off of the hunk of metal, he was sure to perish in the pools of glowing Mako below. Raising his sword, he slammed the blade down onto the thinnest part of the tail, just as Barret blasted the laser. Knowing that they barely had enough time to escape from the reactor before the bomb blew them into oblivion, Cloud slashed open the rest of the cables. The machine froze for three or four seconds as Barret frantically fired at the machine's sensors. Cloud looked for the machine's Achilles heel: the CPU component. He used his sword to cut a hole in metal casing. The scorpion's shields gone, the steel parted like butter. Quickly locating the CPU component, Cloud delivered the final blow to the deadly machine, smashing the CPU to pieces and rolling out of the way amid a shower of sparks. The badly battered and crippled body that was left crumpled loudly onto the platform.

"Hurry up! We have about ten minutes left to get out of here!" Cloud yelled at Barret as they sped towards the ladders. Barret didn't need any more reminders. Grumbling something about who was supposed to be giving the orders, he raced after Cloud. Climbing up the several sets of ladders, they finally reached Jessie, who seemed to be having some trouble.

"Jessie! What's goin' on? This place is gonna blow sky high!" Barret said.

"My foot's stuck!" Jessie wailed as she attempted to free herself. Quickly, Cloud freed her leg and the three of them ran off away from the complex. As they neared the flights of stairs, Cloud checked his clock. They had four minutes to climb the stairs, take the elevator down, and escape from the reactor. After pounding up the stairs at a speed that would shame an Olympian gold medallist, the elevator seemed to take forever in descending them to reactor level four. As soon as the doors slid open, the three rushed out. When they reached Biggs, they had less than a minute to get out of the reactor. The four tore off across the main hallway and met Wedge, the small fat guy, on the bridge.

"We don't have enough time to get out the other way! We're gonna have to find another way out!" Wedge called. Looking towards his right, Cloud found another door. Not bothering to find out if it was locked, Cloud aimed and slammed his shoulder guard into the door, breaking the door free. The five of them piled into the small tunnel just as a huge explosion rocked the entire reactor. Waves of searing heat burst from the reactor doorway and engulfed the bridge they had been on only seconds earlier, melting some parts of the bridge. The shock waves caused by the bomb and the reactor caused the beginning of tunnel to cave in, trapping the four of them. Luckily, the rest of the tunnel held, preventing their getting crushed. Jessie, the explosive expert, began to set a minor explosive to get them out of the fix they were in. Setting the bomb, she said, "OK, everyone get back!" The team scrambled towards the opposite side of the wall as the bomb opened a passage for them to get out. The five rebels tumbled out of the rubble. Wedge was a bit slow and got his behind burned a bit. He hopped around furiously, slapping his ass in order to put out the flames.

"Alright, split up and we'll meet up on the train!" Barret ordered, and everyone but Cloud ran off in different directions.

"H-hey-" Cloud stammered as Barret turned to leave.

"If it's about yer money, wait 'til we get back." Shrugging, Cloud followed Barret up the set of stairs towards the Sector 5 station. Separating at a fork in the road, Cloud wandered around the streets, looking at the havoc they had created. Billboards were torn, streets were littered with paper and soda bottles, and the dwellings looked as if they had weathered a nuclear attack. The city streets were in a sorry state. He found his way to the Sector 5 station. It was a short distance away if you knew which way to go. They were supposed to meet at the Sector 8 station since the Sector 1 station would have attracted too much attention already because of the four Shinra soldiers that were killed. This was just Cloud's way of accomplishing two things he loved to do. One was to avoid Shinra. The second was annoying Barret. He knew that Barret didn't like it when people didn't follow his plans. He wound his way through the destroyed train station. Barret wouldn't like it, but Cloud was planning to hop the train from here. It would easily eliminate any need to deal with soldiers because they wouldn't be searching the slums for the saboteurs. Station workers were running around everywhere, and one, not looking where he was running, knocked a lady in a pink dress and red denim jacket holding a basket of flowers onto the ground. Strolling over, trying to look like an innocent bystander, Cloud reached down and helped her up.

"What's going on?" the flower lady asked Cloud.

"Nothing," Cloud replied nonchalantly.

"Would you care to buy a flower? They're only a Gil." She asked, peering teasingly at him.

"Sure, why not? You don't see many flowers around," Cloud said, forking over a Gil for a flower. This lady wasn't like one of those corny old ladies wandering around trying to look like they were being good when in reality they snapped at others faster than it would take for a starving alligator to find a morsel of meat. He actually felt she was being sincere and that she was just nice to people in general. Or maybe he was just captivated by her eyes. They sparkled like the night sky if you could ever see it from Midgar. She just had that natural kind of beauty that you could rarely find anywhere, even in a place like Midgar.

"Thank you!" said the flower lady jubilantly. 

"Where do you come from, anyway? You don't look like you live on the upper plate," Cloud asked her.

"Oh, I come from the Sector 5 slums. I wouldn't tell you _exactly_ where though. You don't look as if _you_ come from around here either," the flower lady teased. Feeling slightly embarrassed by the remark, Cloud shuffled his feet nervously. He should have known that a slum-girl would have more intelligence than an average lady from the plate would. If he said something stupid like that again, he'd probably babble about how he blew up the reactor.

"Oh, don't be angry! I was only teasing!" the flower lady quickly apologized, clearly feeling bad about what she had done.

"It's all right, don't worry about it," Cloud murmured, being careful with his words, "It's nothing."

"Oh, good," she replied, relieved, "What are you doing up here anyway? It's pretty late."

"Oh, I'm the nighttime kind of guy. There's nothing like hanging around at night away from all of the commotion. Nothing ever closes these days, and it's quiet out here at night. What about you? Why are you selling flowers now of all times?"

"There are still people around here. It's always good to be doing business at this time. The upper plate is so busy during the day, and the pollution in the air makes it feel so _hot_! It's much cooler during the night and more peaceful."

"That's true, you don't get any quiet during the day, and those bodies must generate a ton of heat. You don't get much money from doing this, do you?"

"No, but it's more than just the money-" the flower lady replied slowly.

"Oh, then I won't keep you. Good night," Cloud told her, bowing slightly. But as he twisted around, the flower lady burst out, "Why are you carrying that huge sword? I don't want to sound rude or nosy or anything, but-"

"Well," Cloud cut in, without turning around, "It's like you said. I'm not from around here, and you gotta take care of yourself in the slums, right?" With that he quickly walked away. He didn't want to miss the train and his chance to make a big entrance. The lady shouted, "Well, it was nice meeting you!" With a quick wave back to acknowledge that he heard her, Cloud disappeared down the street. Upon arriving at the station, he found it to be in utter ruin. Unfortunately, some fallen boulders from the broken ceiling above obstructed his path. When nobody was nearby, Cloud mentally reached into his pool of magic reserves and shaped it into sizzling bolts of energy. Directing the energy at the largest of the boulders, Cloud sent a single concentrated beam of electric energy. The rock absorbed the beam, but soon, it was unable to contain the energy. After a few seconds, the boulder exploded from the magnitude of power created by the bolt, clearing a path through the rubble.

Winding his way past into the streets behind the station, two Shinra soldiers came running after him, yelling for him to stop. Cloud stopped all right, but the guards came a little bit too close. Once in range, Cloud pulled from the sources of magic deep within him and sent bolts of lightning sizzling and frying their bodies. Taking his sword, he quickly whacked each of them on the head with the flat end of his blade. Walking into the intersection, three more soldiers tried to stop him. Cloud spun his blade, using the momentum to catch a soldier underneath his chest armor and slammed him into another one. Quickly bringing his sword down onto the helmet of the downed soldier, Cloud cracked his skull. Using more of his magical energy, Cloud used his magical energy to freeze the air around the last soldier, causing the air to form sharp shards of ice, which cut into his skin. Grabbing the soldier by the collar of his uniform, Cloud smashed the man's face with the flat of his sword. Incapacitating these soldiers really annoyed him as they could barely do anything to stop him. Quickly wiping the blood off of his sword with the MP's uniform. Running in the opposite direction, several more soldiers appeared. Cloud charged towards them, as these soldiers weren't armed with guns but electrically charged batons. As he neared them, they paused to charge their batons. One made the mistake of looking away, and Cloud ran his sword through the shoddy armor that he wore so easily that Cloud thought the idiot probably didn't even put his armor on right. Jerking his sword out of the soldier's ruined body and leaving him gasping for breath through torn lungs, Cloud expertly flicked the fatally wounded soldier's blood, into the eyes of his comrades. Sliding him off of his blade, Cloud left him to die as another MP tried to shock him. Conveniently grabbing the third MP, Cloud swung him in front of the offensive. In doing so, however, Cloud tripped as he threw the soldier towards the baton. A fourth managed to shock him in the back. Cloud's shield managed to hold, but he was becoming physically exhausted, a dangerous sign that his energy shield was about to die out. It didn't matter so long as he got some rest before fighting again. Rolling away from another offensive, Cloud found himself right by the overpass. He could already feel the train's rumbles underneath. As the remaining soldiers surrounded him, Cloud simply stood still, waiting for the train.

"You got nowhere to run now, so you better surrender!" one of the soldiers stupidly challenged. Shrugging, Cloud replied, "I got better things to do than mess around with you nutters!" With that, Cloud ran and leapt off of the overpass, just as the train came out from underneath. In a few seconds, before the soldiers could draw their guns and take proper aim, the train disappeared into the tunnel with Cloud on top if it.

Meanwhile, inside the train, the rest of the group was sitting in the cargo area. 

"Where do you think Cloud is? Do you think they killed him?" Jessie wondered aloud.

"You think he's alright Barret?" Wedge asked,

"Damn! What you think I am? A mind reader? How the hell would I know?"

"What about our money, Barret?" Biggs inquired.

"Shu' up! Wait 'til we're back at the hideout!" Barret bellowed as something clunked on top of the cart. Suddenly, the door slid open and Cloud came swinging in.

"Cloud!" Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge exclaimed in unison, impressed by his entrance. Obviously, they were happy to see him.

"Looks like I'm a bit late," Cloud smirked, knowing he would piss Barret off.

"Damn right you're late! Where the hell were ya?" Barret bellowed at Cloud.

"Aww, don't tell me you were worried about me," Cloud said, his eyes twinkling with mirth.

"Don' give me none of that! That's comin' outta your share smart mouth!" Barret scolded and moved into the passenger car, grumbling, "Damned know-it-alls…"

"You were great back there!" Wedge said as he followed Barret into the next car.

"That was some explosion," Biggs admired as he followed Wedge.

"Oh, Cloud, your face is pitch black," Jessie said, wiping his face clean of soot. "I'll close this," she said, shutting the door. "Listen, thanks for helping me out back there at the reactor. Next time, we'll do even better!" With that, Jessie and Cloud followed Biggs. Upon seeing Barret, the passengers all scrambled into the next car. The last passenger, a Shinra manager, muttered, "Hoo boy," under his breath as he left.

"Hey, look, it just got empty all of a sudden." Barret said as he sat down in a chair. After a moment, he injected, "You see that damn pizza above us? That's what's killin' the planet."

"Why doesn't everyone move up onto the plate?" Cloud asked.

"Mebbe 'cause they don't have money. Or maybe, they love their land."

"I know, nobody lives in the slums because they like to," Cloud said, glancing out the window, "A floating city. Pretty unsettling scenery."

"Never thought I'd hear somethin' like that comin' outta your mouth," Barret chuckled as the train rumbled on. Apparently, Barret thought he had cracked a hilarious joke, but nobody really thought it was anything decent. Cloud wandered over to where Jessie was, next to a computer display screen.

"What's going on?" Cloud asked, not really wanting to know.

"Here, come look at this. It's model of Midgar," Jessie explained in earnest, as a 

demonstration appeared on the screen, "It's about a 1/10,000 scale. Pretty impressive. See, there's Reactor Number 1, then 2, then 3, and so on all the way to 8." In the lowest whisper, she added, "The Number 1 reactor is up at the top, due north." Resuming her normal tone of voice, she continued, "The sectors used to have names, but now they're only known by a number. That's the way it turned out." As the computer began to show dots spiraling out of the center, Jessie explained, "Those dots are the tracks that we're on right now. Every now and then, there's an ID checkpoint, where Shinra checks the ID's of everyone on the train and checks it against their database at headquarters." Lowering her voice, she added, "We would definitely look suspicious, so we're using fake ID's. Don't worry about it though, those sensors are really easy to fool if you have the right tools and prepare everything beforehand. They never upgrade their sensor technology. Funny, huh? They spend millions of Gil building an empire and don't upgrade the city security." Seconds later, a bright flash illuminated the entire compartment. 

"Speak of the devil…" Jessie muttered as the moment passed without incident.

"Last stop, Train Graveyard. Time is 12:08 AM," came the conductor's voice over the loudspeaker as the train squealed to a stop at the Sector 7 station.


	2. Mako Mistake

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Mako Mistake

The train door slid open noiselessly, and Biggs leapt out of the compartment followed by Wedge, Jessie, Barret, and finally Cloud. As they scattered to look less suspicious, Barret called them over.

"Get over here you buncha fools!" Barret shouted. So much for looking inconspicuous, Cloud thought as the rest of the team came over in a group huddle.

"OK, so we made some mistakes this time," Barret lectured as the rest rolled their eyes at him, "But! Next time, we'll do better. Let's get to the hideout!" Barret shouted, practically yelling to the world that they had blown up the reactor. Fortunately, nobody noticed, and the train was already roaring into gear to return to the top. Every team member ran towards the Sector 7 bar, Seventh Heaven. Cloud followed them; he didn't want to miss out on getting his share of money. As Cloud approached the bar, several people were shooed out of it in a rather forceful manner. Barret followed, cursing like the sky had fallen on his head. After admitting the other three, he planted himself firmly in front of the stairs. Instead of picking a fight with Barret, Cloud patiently waited to be admitted. When Barret grinned, Cloud knew he was about to make another yet horrible joke.

"Don't do that, you're starting to scare me," Cloud said tauntingly to Barret.

"Listen, I know you wanna see your baby," Barret snickered.

"What baby?" Cloud asked, not knowing what on Earth Barret was talking about.

"Never mind…." Barret replied, muttering to himself. Apparently, he found something funny about the situation. Cloud just shrugged and disappeared into the bar. As soon as he entered, a little girl with bobbed brown hair in a magenta dress ran up and yelled "Papa?" as loud as her voice would allow her. Surprised, Cloud jumped back as the girl fled into a corner. The bartender tried to placate the girl before running up to greet him. She was pretty plain to look at. Her hair was a deep brown color, kept together with a simple band, and she didn't wear as much, preferring clothes that guaranteed comfort. A rather small top, short shorts, boots, and leather gloves finished her appearance.

"Hey, Cloud! You made it back safely!" she exclaimed.

"What are you talking about, Tifa? It wasn't even a hard job!" Cloud replied, astonished. The little girl crept closer, hiding behind Tifa and peeked out from behind her.

"Oh, well, I suppose you're right. After all, you were in SOLDIER," Tifa said, "Don't worry about Marlene there, she's just scared of strangers, but you know, it wouldn't hurt to stop acting like a tough guy all the time. It makes me feel like you're different somehow. Distant." Shrugging, Cloud didn't reply. Tifa acted so unusual these days. Looking away from his eyes, Tifa noticed the flower that Cloud had earlier hastily stuffed into his pocket.

"Oh! A flower! You don't see one of those every day. Is it for me?" Tifa inquired, no longer seeming put out.

"Uh, yeah, of course it is," Cloud stammered, fishing out and holding out the flower for Tifa. Up until this very moment, he hadn't quite known what he was going to do with such a useless object. Tifa, however, seemed to be exhilarated.

"Maybe I should fill the shop with flowers. It would smell so nice in here!" Tifa exclaimed, as she placed the flower in a place where everyone could see it. Cloud winced. It wasn't exactly the image he'd come up with about a bar. A bunch of flowers in here? The place would stink up faster than Barret without his deodorant.

"Cloud, did you fight with Barret this time?" Tifa asked in a more serious tone, as if she could read his mind.

"Not this time, even though he was bitching a lot," Cloud replied.

"You've grown up," Tifa observed quietly. Quickly trying to change the subject, she mumbled, "Maybe you should think about staying and fighting with AVALANCHE." Shrugging his shoulders, Cloud stalked off to talk to the group. Wedge, to nobody's surprise, was pigging out on all the food he could possibly stuff in his mouth. At the moment, he appeared to be cleaning his plate of barbecue pork.

"Hey, you wanna know a secret, Cloud?" Wedge forced out through a stuffed mouth, spraying bits of pork all over the table, "The reason I'm so roly-poly is because of Tifa's great cooking. It's irresistible. You wanna try some?"

"Um, no thanks, Wedge. I think I'll pass," Cloud croaked, feeling a bit green. Turning towards Biggs, who was finishing off a bottle of beer, Cloud felt the sick feeling lift.

"Ah," Biggs exclaimed, putting his bottle down with a distinctive thud, "There's nothing like a drink after a tough job!" Cloud rolled his eyes at this remark. The job was easier than pissing off Barret, which was pretty easy to do. Deciding to leave Jessie, who was fiddling with some electronic kit, alone to do her stuff for AVALANCHE's next mission, Cloud headed towards the bar's doors. At this moment, Barret burst into the room. Cloud quickly hopped back onto a table.

"Alright! We're havin' a meeting! Alla ya, get down!" Barret yelled, propping the Marlene on his shoulder as the four other team members followed Barret as he pushed a secret button on the pinball machine

"Hold on a second, Cloud," Tifa called from the bar counter as Cloud started to go down to the hideout. He obliged her by taking a seat at the counter.

"Do you want something to drink?" Tifa asked.

"Alright, get me a Seventh Heaven," Cloud said.

"I'll make one up for you," Tifa said, reaching for various bottles and mixing the contents together. Sliding the mug to Cloud, she knelt over the top of the counter.

"Are you feeling alright?" Tifa asked him.

"What are you so worried about?" Cloud replied, finishing his drink with a satisfying sigh and setting down the mug, "I told you, the job wasn't hard at all. Anyway, I gotta go down and settle my money with Barret. He doesn't seem to want to let go of it." With that, Cloud stood and took the elevator down to the hideout. There, he found Biggs and Wedge lounging on old, worn leather couches chatting, their feet propped up on a crudely build coffee table. A bulletin board full of news clippings and photographs of the reactors was stuck onto the wall behind them, used for planning the missions that they embarked on. Jessie mumbled quietly to herself as she stared intently at another monitor full of meaningless information with her eyes screwed up in concentration. A newsreel, playing next to the computer terminal, was documenting the recent explosion at the reactor. Next to the TV screen, several sheets of paper with hand-drawn diagrams and scrawled writing were carelessly tacked onto the end onto the wall. Barret stood in the corner, beating a beaten punch bag to a pulp. Marlene sat on a cabinet next to him, cheering him on. He's gonna need a new punch bag sometime soon at this rate, Cloud thought.

"What? I made a mistake with the bomb!" Jessie suddenly exclaimed from her position at the terminal, "No wonder the explosion was too big, I only inserted four grams of clay capacitors into the bomb, I was supposed to put in six!"

"Jessie, what the hell are you talkin' about?" Barret asked cluelessly.

"Nothing, Barret, I just found out I made a minor error in making the bomb. No wonder the newsmen are talking so much about the explosion! It came out too big!" Jessie explained to Barret, who was even more confused than he originally was.

"I want to talk about my money," Cloud said loudly and clearly, walking straight up to Barret.

"Alright, just one question though," Barret grunted, dropping his baffled visage and taking one last swipe at the bag, "Was there anyone from SOLDIER at the reactor?"

"No, I'm sure of it," Cloud said promptly.

"How do you know?" Barret asked suspiciously.

"If there were someone from SOLDIER, you wouldn't be here right now," Cloud retorted.

"Listen, you might be some bad ass guy from SOLDIER, but in AVALANCHE you're just a scrawny new recruit!" Barret bellowed, clearly pissed off by Cloud's remark.

"Let's go up and talk about my money," Cloud said, drawing himself up to his full height. Going back up the elevator, Cloud found Tifa waiting for him. Heading towards the door, Tifa suddenly called out, "Cloud! Aren't you going to stay and fight for AVALANCHE?"

"Why? Why should I?" Cloud asked.

"Don't you remember our promise? Tifa asked him.

"Promise?" Cloud wondered, baffled.

"So you did forget… Remember? It was seven years ago." Tifa prompted as Cloud struggled to remember what the promise was.

"Yeah, I remember now. I was waiting for you at the well. You know, that old one that nobody ever used. It was made of wood, with an iron pipe coming out of it. That well was ancient! Anyway, it was getting kinda cold, and I thought you weren't going to come." Cloud reminisced.

"But I showed up, didn't I?" Tifa asked.

"Yeah, I kinda remember our conversation. I told you I was going to leave town to go to Midgar. You didn't seem very surprised."

"Well, there was no reason for me to be surprised. After all, all the boys were leaving for Midgar at that time."

"Right, but you didn't sound very surprised when I announced I was going to try and join SOLDIER. You kinda just mulled over it."

"No, I was surprised. You probably don't remember that part."

"Well, I guess that was when you made me promise that when I joined SOLDIER and became famous, I'd come and rescue you."

"Well, I would have liked to have the feeling of being swept off of my feet by a hero at least once in my life," Tifa protested.

"Well, I'm no hero and I'm not famous, so the promise doesn't hold." Cloud answered.

"But you got your childhood dream, didn't you? You joined SOLDIER." Tifa prompted, as Barret climbed up the elevator.

"Well," Cloud wavered, not wanting to continue the conversation in front of Barret, "All right, whatever. It doesn't make much of a difference to me."

"I ain't forgotten 'bout your share," Barret said, slapping 1,500 Gil in Cloud's outstretched hand for his payment.

"This is my pay? Don't make me laugh. But I'll do the next job, for 3,000 Gil." Cloud said, leafing through the bills. Barret went into a rage, yelling random curses. Tifa tried to calm him down.

"Shh, Barret, it's OK. We're really just trying to get him onto AVALANCHE, right? So we're really hurting for help." Tifa said.

"That money's for Marlene's schooling!" Barret grumbled as he stalked away. Before going back down, he yelled, "2,000! You'll do it for 2,000 and not a Gil more! I already got the plans done for the next mission, so ya better get your scrawny SOLDIER ass some rest!" and disappeared. Shrugging, Cloud thought, "I'm in for another night I guess," and slunk off to get some rest before the next mission.

The next morning, Cloud found himself alone in the hideout. Biggs, Jessie, and Wedge were probably waiting for him. Tifa was gone too. She probably had to tend the bar. Groaning, Cloud got to his feet and went up to the bar. He found Tifa and Barret waiting for him there. Marlene was standing behind the counter. He could barely see her behind it.

"Our target's the Sector 5 reactor," Barret said briefly.

"This time, I'm going with you," Tifa told Cloud. Shrugging, Cloud had no choice but to go along.

"Then let's get going," he said. As Tifa, Barret, and Cloud left to visit the weapons store, Barret stopped them.

"Uh, I don't really know how to cast magic and all that," he said sheepishly.

"What are you talking about?" Cloud inquired, "It's really simple. Didn't you ever learn how to use magic?"

"I never did nothin' like that! I always depended on my trusty gun!" Barret said defensively.

"Well, if you want to cast magic, there's a couple of simple things you gotta do," Cloud explained, "First, you have to locate your, well, pool of magic."

"Pool of magic? What the hell is that?"

"It's in here," Cloud said, tapping Barret's chest, "It's the best I can explain it. You have to reach in, with you mind, not your hand, and take the magic from there."

"What? Whaddya mean by 'reach in' huh? This is so goddamn confusin',"

"Well, close your eyes and just think about magic in general. You'll find it sooner or later," Cloud continued despite Barret's constant interruptions, "Second, you have to know which Materia does what. It takes some time, but you'll be able to differentiate between one Materia and the other sometime."

"This is so goddamn confusin'," Barret grumbled.

"When you have Materia, you can reach in with your mind and the Materia will sorta tell you what it is and what it can do. Most of it is in something like mental pictures. You'll know the feeling when you get it. By the way, _if_ you're _really_ good, you can draw the magic out of the Materia so you don't need direct contact with the Materia." Cloud simply couldn't resist his little gibe at Barret's apparent stupidity.

"Alright, fine! I don't give a damn what you decide to do! It might make sense in that spiky head of yours, but it don't make any sense in mine. But I'll practice whatever shit you told me to do, and it had better work!" Barret cursed, all the newly acquired information jumbled together in his head, "What about that Materia we found in the reactor?"

"That one? It enables a person cast Cure, which physically refreshes a person and might even heal minor cuts and scratches. It could be really useful during future missions, provided we meet the same kind of security," Cloud said.

Visiting the weapons man, they each bought one of the newly stocked iron bangles, which were much more efficient in using the wearer's energy than the old bronze bangles they had been wearing. Going up to the next floor, Cloud found some blue support Materia, which could be paired with green magic Materia to amplify its effects. Cloud had decided to bypass that lesson because of Barret's limited short-term memory. Heading out of the door to meet up with Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie at the station, some random man stopped them.

"Hey, you guys might find this thing useful. I found it on the streets, but I don't have any idea how to use it. You're probably better off having it," the stranger said, handing Cloud a piece of fire Materia. Cloud just shrugged, took the green sphere, and left, slipping the Materia into his pocket where the rest of the Materia were.

After meeting the rest of the group, they all piled into the train. Once in the train, the occupants fearfully rushed towards the other compartments save one: a Shinra manager. You could tell he was a manager because of his fancy red suit, which was a mark of wealth and power. He did, however, sit at the end of the row of seats and attempt to be nonchalant while he was really quaking in his shoes. Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie moved up the train to secure the compartments. Barret, however, ran up to the poor guy to harass him, Barret's idea of "getting ready" before a mission.

"Well, look at that! It got empty alluva sudden!" Barret exclaimed as the manager mumbled something inaudible. Seizing his chance, Barret hovered over the Shinra manager.

"You say somethin'?" Barret inquired. When the Shinra manager remained silent, Barret repeated in a louder voice, "I said, 'You say something'?'"

The terrified passenger managed to stammer, "It-It's because of you guys! And that group, AVALANCHE!"

"Oh yeah?" Barret growled, clearly enjoying this moment, "Well, AVALANCHE is promising more fireworks, and the bangs get bigger every time!" At this point, Tifa was afraid that Barret might give something away.

"I'm a devoted Shinra employee, I'd go to work even if AVALANCHE is around!" The guy said, gaining courage, just as Tifa came and shushed Barret away before he practically gave away their mission. Reclining in another seat, Barret casually told Cloud, "We're jumpin' offa dis train in three minutes."

"Why?" Cloud asked, confused. Why couldn't they just take the train to the reactor like last time?

"Cuz Shinra's onto somethin', and we gotta fool them. That's why we're jumpin' offa dis train," Barret explained incoherently.

"Hey! Cloud, come over here and check out this animation with me," Tifa called out to him. Cloud obliged as Tifa started the animation.

"I've already seen this thing before. It's not too interesting," Cloud told her.

"Oh, you have? Well, you can just get-" Tifa began, but was interrupted by a loud blaring noise. Biggs ran into the compartment.

"Shit, boss, we've been detected," Biggs relayed to Barret frantically.

_Unidentified passengers located in car 6_, came the automated loud speaker.

"Tifa, Cloud, put your asses inta gear, we're gonna jump offa this train _now_!" Barret commanded.

"The only way to get out is to move up the train car by car," Biggs told Barret, "Hurry! They're locking the doors!" As they rushed into the next car, the train's alarm system followed them. _Unidentified passengers located in car 5_, came the monotone voice. They met up with Wedge and Jessie in compartment 3.

"Jessie! What the hell's goin' on?" Barret bellowed.

"I'll tell you about it later. Go! They're conducting another scan! We'll meet up with you later," Jessie quickly briefed. With that, Biggs, Wedge and Jessie ran off.

"Somebody screwed up pretty bad," Barret grumbled as he, Tifa, and Cloud rushed after them. In the second car, they found a guard, an old guy, and a fat guy knocked out cold and without clothes.

"Somebody did a quick job," Cloud murmured quietly as he hopped over them. When they got into the first compartment, they found Wedge, Biggs, and Jessie in their recently acquired disguises. The Shinra guard, who was really Jessie, slid the door open and covered the door to the conductor's compartment. Wedge and Biggs stood around looked innocent, but were ready to take on anyone to come through here.

"We're safe for now," Barret said, "Tifa, you go first."

"OK. Cloud, I'm going to jump."

"Fine, jump already," Cloud urged.

"Aren't you scared? It's a scary jump," Tifa teased.

"Tifa! Jump already, you're holdin' up the rest of us!" Barret yelled.

"OK, I'm really going to do it!" Tifa said as she leapt out of the train and into the tunnels.

"Cloud, you next. The leader has gotta be the last," Barret commanded, placing a heavy emphasis on the word 'leader', "Don't get your spiky ass hurt, the mission hasn't even begun yet!" Cloud shrugged and swung out of the train with practiced ease. After whispering some quick instructions to the rest of the team about their locations, Barret jumped out without much grace and landed heavily on both feet. He then backtracked a bit to where Tifa and Cloud were gathered.

"OK, hotshot, where to now?" Barret asked Cloud.

"How am I supposed to know? I didn't build these rails ya know!" Cloud said indignantly, "But I think I know which way to go. We can follow this path back a bit and it should take us to an exit point soon. From there, we can find our way to Reactor No. 5. It'll take some time, but it's the best plan we've got."

"Good, let's go then!" Barret said as Cloud led them through the tunnel. The walls were lined with pipes, cables, and vents. The lighting was dim, for there was little reason for anyone to be in the tunnels. As they neared an unusual kind of constriction in the tunnels, Cloud's soldier instincts told him to stay put.

"Hold on, I don't think we should keep moving just yet," Cloud warned as Barret took a step towards the slightly constricted section of the tunnel.

"Why the hell not?" Barret asked, hitting the safety catch on his gun, "Why don' we jes _tell_ us what you're thinkin' for cryin' out loud?"

"Just hold on a second," Cloud spat impatiently as he took a more careful look at the constriction. Dancing red dots caught his attention, "There are sensors here. If we try and go through, Shinra may be alerted to our presence."

"Then what the hell are we doin' here?" Barret yelled furiously, "I don' know why I let you lead the way when we're on a tight schedule like now! Cloud took a quick look around to look for an opening. His eyes drifted from the laser sensors to the side of the tunnel where he discovered a large vent.

"Hey! I'm talkin' to you, hotshot," Barret yelled, "So you brought us here and now there's no way out!"

"I didn't say there wasn't a way out," Cloud said, walking over and inspecting the cover, finally kicking open the vent.

"Oh no, you don' expect me to fit in that little hole, do ya?" Barret whimpered.

"Well, it looks like it's the only way through. You gonna take it or leave it?" Cloud inquired.

"Where's it go?" Barret whined.

"Well, if you know how to read, you can see for yourself. But since we're on this 'tight schedule', I should probably just tell you. This is the escape hatch from the Reactor No. 5 maintenance pipes. We're just lucky that Shinra required alternate escape routes for the maintenance crews in case of emergencies. The train tunnels are littered with them."

"Alright, but if something goes wrong it's your fault!" Barret snapped as he crawled into the vent head first, barely fitting in the tiny space, "Damn, this thing gives me the creeps!"

"Ah, just go and don't think about it," Cloud said calmly, giving Barret a light push to go faster. He heard Barret cursing as he squeezed himself along. A flurry of curses followed almost immediately. "Alright, Tifa, you next." After Tifa climbed through, Cloud slid down the vent. It was a big vent, and something bothered Cloud.

"Lucky this vent's so big," Tifa sighed, relieved. After crawling for what seemed to be an eternity, the trio of saboteurs found themselves at a steel grating. Barret, being first, smashed his gun-arm into the grating, knocking it loose. Another whack popped the grating from the vent, and Barret tumbled out onto a platform. Tifa and Cloud followed with considerably more grace than Barret.

"Do you know which reactor this is? We gotta make sure it's Reactor No. 5," Barret asked.

"Well, I seem to remember telling you that we were using the Reactor No. 5 escape hatch. Anyway, that's Wedge over there, do you think it's him?" Cloud said sarcastically, pointing a finger across the plaza at a round, yellow lump in the distance.

"Yeah, that's him. It's sheer dumb luck that we ended up at the right reactor," Barret grunted, heaving his huge body over a rusty ladder. The three of them descended down to the plaza level and ran up to Wedge.

"Hey, I thought you guys weren't going to come! Jessie and Biggs are at their positions. You guys had better go, I'll meet up with you later," Wedge reported as they climbed the stairs to get to where Jessie was supposed to be. Arriving at a small, steel chamber, the trio met Jessie.

"This is one of the maintenance vents. It should lead you straight into the reactor plaza just before the long descent of ladders. The space may be a bit small, but you should all be able to fit in them. From there, you should be able to find your way out since the blueprints for all of the reactors are the exact same," Jessie explained to them.

"OK, Whatever, Jessie, what the hell happened on the train?" Barret asked.

"Oh, that. It was my fault. I was trying to modify the ID cards while we were on the train and the security system detected me," Jessie said, hanging her head in shame.

"Did they know who it was you were trying to fix?" Barret asked anxiously. They had to cover their steps from Shinra.

"No, they didn't. The system just knew someone was messing around with ID cards, and that's what set it off."

"Come on, Barret, we have to hurry up. We already lost time getting here in the first place," Cloud reminded.

"Yeah, you're right. Let's go," Barret said, suddenly sounding anxious. They had wasted enough time already. With that, the three crawled into yet another tight-fitting passage. After a few minutes, however, Tifa, Barret, and Cloud found themselves standing on the chrome floor of the reactor plaza, where Biggs was waiting for them.

"Barret! Cloud! Tifa! Glad you were able to make it here. I was starting to think you were going to abort the mission!" Biggs exclaimed.

"Not now, Biggs. Listen, We're already in a dangerous position from the incident on the train, so I want you to go back and pick up Wedge and Jessie. We'll meet out in front of the reactor at the rendezvous point." The three ran across the floor and loudly crashed through the door. Now was not the time to be stealthy. It was the time to move with unprecedented speed. It was likely that Shinra was already alerted to their presence.

After entering the reactor's piping, Cloud loosened his sword, ready to fight in a pinch. Climbing down the ladders, Cloud and Barret made clanking sounds, as they weren't concerned as much with stealth. Tifa, however, descended the ladders with great alacrity, and she barely made a sound doing it. She was catlike; the heights did not impair her speed and silence. As they neared the reactor, Tifa took guard next to the reactor in case of attack while Cloud was setting the bomb. Barret took his place guarding the rear in case of an attack from behind. Since Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge weren't able to give them cover, it was up to the three of them to hold off any security. As Cloud moved to set the bomb, he caught a quick glimpse of Tifa standing there. Somehow, seeing Tifa in this particular context triggered a residual memory about a reactor in the past. Cloud suddenly recalled seeing Tifa knelt over a dead body and a huge, curved sword. "SOLDIER, reactors, Shinra, I hate them all…" Someone said that, but who? And why?

"Hey! Get a hold on yourself, man!" Barret interrupted suddenly, breaking Cloud's line of thought.

"Sorry, Barret. Tifa, were you-" Cloud began, but stopped after the first few words.

"Was I what?" Tifa asked him.

"Never mind, it's nothing," Cloud said, brushing away the topic. With that, he quickly set the timer for the bomb. After setting the bomb, Cloud expected another metal scorpion to pop out of nowhere, but nothing happened.

"Mebbe they have their alarm systems disabled," Barret said hopefully. As they ascended the ladders and pounded up the stairs, the Tifa punched in the access codes scrawled on a small piece of paper sporting Jessie's untidy scrawl. Her pianist fingers moved like lightning as they darted from one number to the next. Despite the mistake on the train, they managed to arrive at a T-shaped bridge without incident.

"We made it outta there! Now, all we gotta do-" Barret trailed, his expression of triumph turning into an expression of worry, as Shinra troops ran out of their exit, the left branch of the bridge.

"I thought there was something wrong with the lack of security," Cloud mumbled to himself as the three took a defensive stance. A rather squatty, fat man in a red suit and neatly combed, though thinning, hair appeared behind the troop of soldiers.

"What the hell is going on, Cloud?" Barret whispered fiercely.

"It has to be a trap, I think we triggered Shinra's mainframe computer when Jessie tried to modify our ID cards," Cloud whispered back.

"Well, well, look what we caught in our net," the man said, protected by the soldiers.

"Mr. President," Cloud said, breaking the defensive stance and walking towards the fat man, "Long time no see."

"Which one are you, traitor?" President Shinra spat out. "You were part of SOLDIER, were you not?"

"You're right in one. My name's Cloud," Cloud answered.

"Well, I don't remember you. I can't be expected to remember everyone's name," the president said, shrugging his shoulders, "Unless, of course, you become another Sephiroth. There never was another like him. You, of course, won't be allowed that chance. Not after you betrayed the Shinra like this. No, I'm going to have to-"

"What? So you think you can take us out with that measly guard of yours, huh?" Barret interrupted, "So you're President Shinra, eh?"

"And who might you be?" the president asked, annoyed by the interruption.

"Me? I'm the leader of AVALANCHE!" Barret crowed, apparently trying to impress the leader of the world's largest corporation.

"Oh, you're that bunch of rabble," the president sighed, unimpressed.

"What! Rabble?" Barret yelled furiously, "What are you? All ya Shinra are vermin, and you're President Shinra, so I guess that would make you _king_ vermin!"

"Well, I suppose that you mean what you say," the president stated vaguely, walking away, "If you are finished now, I must go. I'm a very important man, I presume you understand?"

"I don' care if you're the king of the world!" Barret shouted after his retreating form, "Hey! I'm not done with you yet!" At these words, the president turned around and strode back, saying, "Of course, I wouldn't go without leaving you all a little present." With that, he snapped his fingers and an enormous jet-black hoverbot swung into view from the third branch of the bridge. It sported heavy guns with a diameter comparable to that of an oil tank. This one was more humanoid, with enormous arms and fists. The mere sight of it gave the impression that it could squeeze the breath out of you with one hand. In addition to its guns, it appeared that there was a whole arsenal of weapons concealed in various parts of its body. A yellow insignia in the center of its torso told Cloud that the Shinra Weapons department created it.

"Ah, yes. I present you the Airbuster. Our Weapons Development Department developed it. I believe that the information it extracts from your dead bodies will be extremely useful to us. After all, Shinra does need to eliminate all traces of AVALANCHE from Midgar at the very least," President Shinra said. Turning his attention to the soldiers, he ordered, "Make sure they die. I don't want any uncertainties, and I especially don't want any more trouble from AVALANCHE. Remember, there's a big bonus in it for you."

"Yes, President Shinra, sir!" The six soldiers chorused, saluting.

"Very well. In that case, I really must be going," the president said, continuing to exit. The soldiers simultaneously cocked their guns and the Airbuster zoomed in, cutting Cloud off from Barret and Tifa. Quickly throwing himself into the action, Cloud jumped in among the soldiers, sweeping them off their feet. Those soldiers who managed to evade Cloud's leg were given a resounding whack in the stomach from Cloud's enormous sheath, which was strapped on his back. After tripping the soldiers, Cloud immediately set to work completely neutralizing them by striking their heads with his sword. Those soldiers were likely to lose a few IQ points, but Cloud wasn't about to lose any sleep over it. He still had the robot to deal with. Swerving around, he found the machine in heavy combat with Tifa and Barret.

While Cloud was busy taking out the soldiers, the hoverbot swung a mighty fist in Tifa's direction. However, Tifa not only had a pianist's fingers, she was also highly trained in a powerful hand-to-hand type of fighting. It took a great deal of inner strength to achieve such a high level of unarmed fighting, but the result was well worth the long years of hardship. With both fists, Tifa managed to stop its attack. The robot strained to overpower her, but Tifa showed no signs of weakening. Unfortunately, since she was unarmed, it was difficult for her to make a fruitful assault on the machine. Nonetheless, she was able to keep the machine from knocking her into oblivion. Meanwhile, Barret plugged away at the robot's head, trying to take out its sensing equipment. Empty shells popped from Barret's gun, hitting the floor with a clear clinking sound. By the time Cloud finished off the last of the soldiers, Barret was already reloading his gun for the third time and the robot still showed little signs of weakening. With a running start, Cloud sped towards the back of the robot and jumped, kicking off on a railing and the hoverbot's base. Gripping his sword tightly, Cloud slammed his sword down as hard has he could, expecting the quick jolt from the robot's shielding. However, just before Cloud had brought down his blade, Barret had gotten a lucky shot, hitting a valve on the robot's Mako tanks. Doing that did not permanently disable the shield, but it flickered for a tiny instant, a fraction of a second. However, it was just enough as Cloud's sword tore through the metal behind it, ripping the steel. Just then, the machine regained control of its energy and threw back up its shield. The next instant, Cloud found himself tumbling head over heels across the bridge. In a sudden burst of renewed energy, the robot broke through Tifa's hold, throwing her several yards as she tumbled across another section of the bridge.

If the machine could roar, it would certainly have done so at that point. At that point, it was unchecked. It pointed its huge guns towards Barret and fired mercilessly. Under a hail of bullet the size of cannonballs, Barret was forced back until Cloud came up from behind and slammed his sword into its fuel cell area, effectively knocking out some of its power. At that, the robot's systems flickered for a just a second, but that was enough for Cloud to cut more of the flow pipes that ferried Mako energy to its systems. Not knowing which one did what, Cloud did the obvious and simply cut as many of the pipes supplying power to the machine as he possibly could. Sensing that it was under attack, the machine twisted sharply, throwing Cloud off of its base. However, at that point, several hundred rounds of bullets from Barret's gun riddled it with bullet holes. Luckily for Barret, one of the shells had penetrated the outer shell and hit not the processing unit, but capacitors. This, in turn caused an overflow of unchecked energy flowing through the machine's systems. As its circuits fried, a single spark near the Mako tanks, still pumping fuel through the robot's systems caused an explosion equivalent to that of a small nuclear device, but within a highly condensed range. The machine itself had absolutely no chance of surviving an explosion like that, as the very air around it vibrated and rippled from the blast, bending the light beams as they went through it. Tifa hobbled over to Barret as Cloud came from the other end. All three were exhausted from the fight, but as Tifa was congratulating Barret on his wonderful shot, the section of the bridge that Cloud was standing on suddenly gave way. Unable to react quickly enough, Cloud desperately hung onto the mangled iron mesh that supported the inner layer of the bridge.

"Cloud! Are you OK?" Tifa yelled out in concern, "Barret! Do something!"

"What the hell do you think I'm gonna do?" Barret yelled, as the gap was easily two or three yards long.

"Don't worry, I'll be alright. I can get out of this crazy fix by myself," Cloud called back, reaching for another part of the broken mesh. Cloud might have been able to get back onto the bridge, but at that moment, the bomb they had planted deep in the reactor exploded, rocking the entire structure. The sharp jolt of the bridge caused Cloud to lose his hold. Desperately grabbing for the bridge, Cloud found nothing in his fist but air. Tifa and Barret watched helplessly as he fell, seeing him disappear as he dropped into the icy mist to whatever lay below.


	3. Flower of Fate

****

Flower of Fate

A cloudy, dreamlike image slowly materialized out of the white haze. Bright fluorescent lights sent dazzling rays wherever he looked. A large room with large windows for walls came into view, but it was fuzzy, as if he were viewing it on television with really bad resolution. At one end of the room, he saw a huge, plump man wearing green, a short fat guy wearing a red suit, and a scrawny, skinny guy wearing just plain blue. They all stood around a huge desk. To Cloud, it looked pretty expensive, but he couldn't really see too clearly. Back in the back of his head, something clicked. This was the President Shinra's office. But what was he doing here? Did they capture him? They didn't seem to act as if he were there. What the hell is going on? Cloud thought to himself. Surprisingly, something, but not the people, responded him, _You'll see._ Cloud couldn't find the source of the voice, but the other guys didn't seem to notice it either.

"President Shinra, I've just been to the Sector 5 reactor! The soldiers were all knocked out cold and-" the messenger stammered as he rushed wildly into the president's office. He didn't seem to notice Cloud was there either.

"I thought as much. It just so happens I have already taken the next step. We'll just have to get rid of AVALANCHE in a different way. What do our sources say about the man with the gun for an arm? I'm sure one of our contacts have seen him," the president responded.

"My sources have relayed to me that the man was seen frequently hopping the trains to Sector 7. We don't know exactly where," The man in green responded gruffly.

"Good work, Heidegger. I believe that we'll do something drastic this time. Why don't we drop the plate?" the president asked calmly.

"What? Drop the plate? We can't do that! It would cost so many lives! How would you cover up for the incident?" spluttered the man with jet-black hair, "Is it really necessary to drop the plate to kill just a group with a few people in it?"

"Reeve, face it. You're an idiot. You're so low that you don't even get paid enough to buy new suits with. You'd better flush those problems of yours the next time to go to take a shit 'cause you're so full of it that-"

"Heidegger, please. Reeve has simply been working too long. And whom are you going to give the job to? I don't want any fools to be assigned to do something of this magnitude," President Shinra said in that calm tone of his. Guffawing loudly, Heidegger managed to say, "I'll get the Turks on it," as he left the office guffawing. Reeve turned beet red and clenched his fists in fury. "Reeve, maybe you really should take a vacation. After all, you've been working extraordinarily hard these past few months," the president suggested. Reeve shook his head emphatically.

"No, president. It is my job to see that Midgar is running properly. Dropping a plate would kill tens of thousands of inhabitants. We'd also lose lots of power in the surrounding areas. People aren't going to like this. Not only is the order of the city going to fall apart, the people's faith in Shinra will waver as well," Reeve explained.

"No need to worry, Reeve. I have it all planned out. We will drop the plate, and the incident will be blamed entirely on AVALANCHE. It will only bolster the people's confidence in Shinra. AVALANCHE will be as good as dead. Even if they survive, our story will spread so much hatred against them that they'll report any sightings of AVALANCHE members. Trust me, Reeve," the president said. Reeve forced a nod. After all, what else could you do in the president's presence? Turning on his heel, Reeve stalked right towards Cloud. Trying to move away so that Reeve wouldn't bump into him, Cloud found that he couldn't move a muscle. He was even more surprised when Reeve walked right through him. Cloud just saw a flash of black and Reeve was gone, presumably behind him. The president just turned around and began to mumble to himself. Something about him caught Cloud's attention, yet he didn't know what.

The images faded into the white mist it had come out of, and the disembodied voice appeared again. _Now, try and get up._ What was this thing talking about? Where am I anyway? What are you? Cloud thought. Eerily, the voice responded as if it could read his mind. _You will soon find out._ With that the voice faded away, and Cloud could not understand what that was all about. He groaned, not in his head this time, but out loud. To his surprise, a feminine voice, only vaguely familiar, came from somewhere nearby.

"Oh! You're still alive!" the voice said. Cloud cracked one of his eyes open, and the real world came into focus. He saw those lovely brown eyes again, with wisps of hair almost touching his face. Cloud moved his arms and legs. They seemed to be all right. He'd be bruised, sure, but nothing permanent. The face disappeared as he tried to get up. He felt small, yet callused hands grabbing his forearm and pulling him to his feet. Taking a careful look at the young lady once again, Cloud found himself with none other than the flower girl selling flowers the night before.

"Fancy meeting you again, and here," Cloud said vaguely.

"Yeah, I was so surprised when you crashed down through the roof. I thought you'd surely have died," she said shakily, "The roof and flowers must have broken your fall, even though they aren't much."

"What! Oh, I'm so sorry about the flowers!" Cloud yelped as he discovered he was in a bed of yellow flowers like that he had bought.

"It's OK, really. The flowers in this church appear to be truly resilient. I don't know many things that can stand up to a fall like that one," the lady said, her brows knitted in heavy thought. Suddenly, she seemed to drop whatever she was thinking and said, "By the way, my name is Aeris. I think it's OK to introduce myself since it's the second time we've met already."

"Oh, I'm Cloud," Cloud replied, trying to sound sure of himself. Aeris appeared to be unconvinced.

"Do you remember who I am?" Aeris asked Cloud, thinking that maybe this wasn't the same person.

"Oh, yeah. I remember. You were selling flowers on the streets. I bought a flower from you," Cloud said quickly, "I was referring to your name. Aeris isn't a very common name, is it?"

"No, it's not. I'm glad you remember me, though. It at least says that you didn't suffer lots of brain damage," she said as they shared a laugh, "What do you do for a living anyway? You know I sell flowers already."

"Me? I'm an all-purpose kind of guy. I do whatever's needed," Cloud responded, resuming his tough-guy attitude.

"Oh! A jack of all trades!" Aeris teased as a man entered from the church's two double-doors. He had spiked brown hair, and he wore sunglasses on top of his head. He wore marginally formal apparel, a black coat with a white-collar shirt and black dress pants. Expensive leather shoes finished his neat appearance.

"Oh, don't mind me. I'm just passing my time here," the man said in a voice in a gentle, yet chilling tone as Aeris and Cloud turned towards him.

"Cloud, have you ever been a bodyguard?" Aeris asked quietly, no longer with a teasing air.

"I've done it before, why?" Cloud responded.

"I want to ask you. Will you be my bodyguard for a while?" she told him.

"Sure, why not? I'll even do it for free this time." Cloud said.

"For how many people have you done a job free of charge for?" Aeris asked curiously, yet the strain in her voice told Cloud that she was tense about something.

"Um, actually, you're the first," Cloud mumbled, embarrassed.

"Oh, well, that's OK. You don't have to be so embarrassed you know," she said quickly. The man with the spiked hair took a few steps towards the two. Something in Cloud told him that this guy was no ordinary guy. He was obviously up to something. Suddenly, something in Cloud's brain clicked. The suit and glasses, he'd seen it somewhere before, but where? Shinra, he worked for Shinra, Cloud thought, struggling with his memories. He must be a member of the Turks! The Turks were the dark side of Shinra; they did the dirty work for the company. Breaking away from his thoughts, Cloud moved to a better position to protect Aeris.

"Aeris, stay behind me," Cloud mumbled quietly, so only Aeris could hear what he was saying. In a much louder voice, Cloud said, "I know who you work for, and you're not going to come any closer." It was an empty threat, but the guy hadn't seen Cloud fall, and so he wouldn't know that Cloud wasn't in any shape for a fight.

"Do you even know who I am?" the guy asked, "What are you doing anyway? This business of mine doesn't concern you." Suddenly, four or five soldiers burst in through the doors. "You bunch of fools! You weren't supposed to come in so soon!" the Turk yelled, his attention distracted for a moment, "You're a disgrace! You can't even follow simple orders!" While he was reprimanding his troops, Cloud felt Aeris tapping him on the shoulder. Turning his head, he saw Aeris heading towards the back of the church. Knowing he probably couldn't get out of a fight unscathed, Cloud quickly followed her, keeping an eye one his enemies, who were still unaware of their escape. Slipping through the doorway, he found himself in a dilapidated room where rotten floorboards, a broken board, and several gaping holes and pits populated the floor, exposing the dank basement beneath them and a large iron pipe the size of a sewage pipe. The room was in horrible shape and dark. Against one wall was a staircase that led down to the basement, but a ragged hole nearby was located just above the last few steps.

"This area of the church is in really bad shape," she whispered, jumping over a yard-wide gap in the floor. "Lots of things have been here, and long ago, someone broke the boards here. There hasn't been money to fix this place up yet, so it remains just as dilapidated." Cloud quickly followed suit, and the two climbed up the set of oak stairs leading to a three-foot-wide ledge that led along the sides of the walls. Unfortunately, they didn't manage to escape the Turk and his henchmen. Leaping over another gap on the second floor, Cloud forgot for the moment that he was supposed to be escorting Aeris. Turning around, Cloud yelled out to her, "Jump!" Aeris prepared to jump, but the soldiers spotted her before she could jump.

"Look! There she is, get her!" someone yelled as the soldiers opened fire on the girl. "You fools! If you hurt her I'll flay you alive!" the Turk yelled at the soldiers, slapping at their heads to try to get them to stop firing. Luckily, their aim was so bad none of the soldiers managed to hit her directly. However, the bullets did rip through the ground before Aeris, causing her to recoil, and she took a step back onto the edge of the splintering ledge. When she stepped back, the edge crumbled, causing Aeris to lose her footing. With a small gasp of surprise, she tumbled down towards the lower floors. She hit the edge of the hole nearby the basement and slipped off of the torn edges into the basement, ripping her pink dress. Hitting the hard concrete floor knocked the breath out of her, rendering her unable to fend for herself. She knelt on all fours, panting. Cloud groaned and tried to find a way to get her out. Looking above at the rafters, Cloud spotted several large barrels. Taking a glance downward, Cloud saw Aeris recovering from her fall. She stumbled up the stairs only to be confronted by a soldier.

"Cloud! Help me!" Aeris wailed, clutching the wooden banister tightly. Quickly climbing up the rusty iron ladder to rafters, Cloud grabbed a barrel, which felt empty, and heaved it over with stunning accuracy. The barrel landed on the advancing soldier's head, crushing most of the bones in his neck and causing him to tumble down the stairs. Aeris flattened her body against the side of the passage, barely avoiding the tumbling soldier. Cloud was checking other barrels to see if there was anything in them that he could use. Opening the lid of a particularly rotten barrel, Cloud found it full of dry sawdust. Replacing the lid, Cloud picked it up and slung it downward with all his might towards the remaining soldiers. The barrel broke apart upon impact and the thick clouds that bloomed from the barrel immediately blinded the soldiers. Aeris clattered her way loudly up the stairs to the second floor. Cloud swung down and leapt over the edge to the other side. Cupping his gloved hands, Cloud waited for Aeris to step in them so he could help her over. As soon as he felt her weight, Cloud heaved with all his strength and she flew over to safety. Unfortunately, Cloud gave Aeris too much momentum, and she couldn't regain her footing when she landed. Stumbling, she fell to the ledge. Cloud leapt over and yanked her to her feet.

"Hurry up," Cloud whispered fiercely in Aeris's ear as he gave her a gentle push towards the ladder, "They won't be blinded for much longer!" The soldiers below were having coughing fits and rubbing their eyes of dust. As the two reached the rafters, Cloud heard, distantly but quite distinctly, the sound of a cell phone ringing. Taking advantage of the moment, Cloud searched for a way out, but they appeared to be closed in. Far below, he could hear the soldiers yelling. They didn't have much time to get out of this place. Suddenly, he felt a gentle tug on his arm. Aeris was furtively motioning for him to go towards the end of one of the rafters. In the dark, Cloud couldn't see much, but when as he approached the place where the roof met the rafters, Cloud noticed that it was a repair hatch for if the roof was damaged and needed to be repaired. Cloud pushed open the hatch and helped Aeris out of the building onto the roof. Cloud followed quickly, swinging himself up through the hatch and closed it shut. They were safe for the time being.

"We'd better get away from here, or else they'll find us," Cloud muttered quietly, helping Aeris along the roof.

"I'm not _that_ helpless!" Aeris said indignantly, brushing Cloud off. Shrugging, Cloud hopped over onto one of the old, long-abandoned hovels that were used as junk sheds. They were made haphazardly, and they looked like someone simply slapped pieces of metal together. It was, however, a reasonably stable structure, able to carry Cloud's weight. Several other shacks littered the area, each about a yard apart. Some were much larger than others, and others had more than one layer. Hopping over a series of hovels, Cloud used the buildings like a staircase until he was able to get to the ground rather easily. Aeris followed, though at a much slower pace.

"Hey, wait for me!" Aeris called out, preparing to jump to the next roof. After she caught up, Cloud teased, "That's funny, I thought you were all cut out to be in SOLDIER."

"Oh, you're a terrible bodyguard," Aeris complained, but her carefree giggle gave her away. After they jumped off the final shack, they found themselves in an intersection.

"How did you know about that hatch back there?" Cloud asked Aeris.

"Oh, I used to use that hatch to get out," Aeris replied, "They're probably trying to find out where I went again."

"Before? These people came after you before?" Cloud exclaimed.

"Well, yeah," Aeris explained, "Who are those people, anyway?"

"They're the Turks. They mainly scout for potential candidates for SOLDIER, but they do lots of other things on the side too like blackmail and murder. You know, those kind of things," Cloud defined accurately without hesitation.

"No wonder it felt so much like being kidnapped!" Aeris exclaimed in awe, shaking her head.

"Do you know why they're after you?" Cloud asked her.

"They think I have the potential to be in SOLDIER," Aeris said, blushing deeply. Cloud heard some faint noises in the church below.

"Do you want to be in SOLDIER?" Cloud asked curiously.

"No way," Aeris said, shaking her head emphatically.

"So, which way should we go now?" Cloud asked her, changing the subject.

"My house is that way, let's go," Aeris said, straightening up and pointing towards the right fork. A few seconds after they began to walk towards the small group of houses in Sector 5, a dirty guy wearing a worn red bandana and a stained shirt made a grab for Aeris. Fulfilling his duty as a bodyguard, Cloud put one hand on her shoulder, a signal for her to stop as his other hand snatched the guy's wrist inches from Aeris's body.

"Hey, hey! Leggo or I'll hafta hurt ya!" the thug sputtered. Cloud rolled his eyes and snapped back the offending guy's wrist. Squealing in pain, the thug suddenly noticed that Cloud had a huge sword nearly as big as he was slung across his back. Seeing his eyes widen to the size of saucers, Cloud simply smiled and let go. The thug, no longer very threatening, ran off without a moment's hesitation. Cloud snaked his arm around Aeris's waist, pulling her just slightly closer to him as they walked. The rest of the gang members didn't budge from their places. Cloud could almost smell the fear on them.

"You didn't have to make such a lasting impression on those guys," Aeris said softly. She didn't want the gang's pride, if they had any, to be hurt. "They'll be scared out of their wits for months now."

Entering the actual neighborhood, Cloud let go of Aeris and allowed her to guide him towards her house. There wasn't any danger around here, since there was the slum police force patrolling around. Leading Cloud around the central group of shacks, Aeris led him towards a small garden full of the same flowers in the church and an old Victorian house. Cloud nearly gasped when he saw it, for it was by far the most stunning building that he had ever seen in his life.

"Is this your house?" Cloud asked in a hoarse whisper, awed by the sheer beauty of the place compared to the rest of the Sector 5 slums.

"Yep, Come on! I want you to meet my mom," Aeris said jubilantly, hopping up the front steps.

"How did you manage to get a place like this?" Cloud asked, still shocked by the respect that the place seemed to command.

"Well, I'm not really sure. I think it's been in the family for years," Aeris said, frowning slightly as she unlocked the front door with a key she fished out of her red denim jacket and swinging open the door. Cloud followed quietly, trying to look professional. He was, after all, a hired bodyguard. Cloud found himself in an immaculate room with some very old furniture.

"Mom! I'm home!" Aeris called out to the empty house.

"Aeris, do you know how to get to Sector 7? I need to go see Tifa," Cloud said, immediately wishing Tifa's name hadn't been brought up.

"Is Tifa a girl?" Aeris asked, suddenly sounding a bit hurt. When Cloud nodded, she asked tentatively, "A girl as in a girlfriend?" At this, Cloud shook his head, not knowing if she believed him or not. He felt better after Aeris gave a relieved sigh. A few seconds later, a prim woman wearing an emerald green dress and an apron appeared at the top of the staircase. Her hair was worn in a small bun without a single strand of hair out of place.

"Oh, Aeris, you're back! I'm glad you made it safely," she exclaimed. Noticing Cloud, she inquired with the slightest tone of skepticism, "And who might this young man be?"

"Oh, this is Cloud, he was my bodyguard on the way back," Aeris explained quickly, "Cloud, this is my mom, Elmyra."

"You were followed again?" Aeris's mother exclaimed, "Oh my, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, mom," Aeris said, exasperated, "I had Cloud with me. I think I'm going to need to change though, my dress got ripped."

"I'll fix that up for you sometime, dear. You had better go change." Aeris nodded and slowly climbed the stairs to the second floor. "So, you're Cloud, are you?" the woman said.

"Yes, ma'am," Cloud replied with respect, "I'm mostly a mercenary, but I do whatever's needed."

"Ah, yes, a useful trade," the woman said thoughtfully, "And call me Elmyra. I always feel awkward when people address me in such a formal way." Looking at Cloud straight in the eye, she noticed the odd glow in his eyes. Upon seeing this, Elmyra asked, "Your eyes, they have a sort of glow to them. You wouldn't happen to be in SOLDIER, would you?"

"I used to be in SOLDIER, but I quit awhile back," Cloud said, nodding, "Not many people know about the glowing eyes thing being a mark of SOLDIER." Aeris came down the stairs wearing a new pink dress, this one free of rips and tears. She held a chrome rod made from a lightweight, yet sturdy alloy.

"Mom, I'm taking Cloud to Sector 7, I'll be back in a while." Aeris said, heading towards the door.

"But Aeris, it's so late now, why don't you wait until morning? I'm sure Cloud would be glad to stay with us for the night." Elmyra protested. Aeris hesitated, but turned around and said, "You're right, I'll go and make the beds." With that, she trudged up the stairs. Turning towards Cloud, Elmyra whispered, "Cloud?" Turning his attention to her, she continued, "I really don't know how to say this, but Sector 6 is a dangerous place, if you know what I mean, and I don't want Aeris to go, so could you leave in the middle of the night without telling her? I don't want to sound rude or anything, but-"

"It's all right, I understand," Cloud said, but he had the feeling that Elmyra didn't trust him to be with Aeris alone because he was in SOLDIER. Shinra caused all kinds of difficulties like this. Elmyra nodded, but she didn't seem convinced. Aeris suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs.

"I got the room ready for you, Cloud. You'd better get some sleep. We're going to get up early tomorrow morning," Aeris called down. Feeling he had little choice but to go upstairs with her, Cloud took a quick glance back at Elmyra. However, she no longer showed expression of any sort and was retreating into the kitchen, but Cloud couldn't begin to fathom the reason why. Trudging up the stairs, Cloud closely examined the ornate wood of the banister. Though the house was extraordinarily old, the banister showed no signs of splintering. They obviously treated the house well. When he reached the second floor, Aeris was waiting for him.

"That one's your room," she said, pointing to the door at the end of the hall, "Would you like me to sing you a lullaby?" she added playfully. Cloud shook his head vehemently. "Well, fine then. I'll just kiss you good night then," Aeris said, giving Cloud a quick peck on the cheek before he could object. By the time he looked back, Aeris had swept into her own room. _I guess I don't really have a choice but to get some rest_, Cloud thought. With that, he went into his room. One thing Cloud noticed was that everything in the house was clean. There was not a speck of dust anywhere. This particular room was small, yet it didn't feel cramped, even with the nightstand, the bed, and the desk crammed into a room the size of a prison cell. With a sigh, Cloud flopped onto the soft bed, waiting for Aeris to fall asleep so he could sneak away.

It's been a long time since I slept in a bed like this, Cloud thought. When was the last time I was in a bed this comfortable? Suddenly, a memory flashed before him. He was at his mom's house. Turning his head, he could see his mom sitting by the window. Wait, isn't my mom dead? Cloud wondered, didn't she perish in that fire five years ago? Has it been that long since I felt a bed like this one? Eager to discover more, Cloud slipped into unconsciousness, allowing the memory to flow like a rampant river.

"My, my, I haven't seen you sleep like this before. Is something wrong?" his mother sighed, worried about her son.

"It's nothing, mom. I'm just tired. That's all," he said, drawing his breath slowly.

"The girls must never leave you alone in the city," his mother guessed.

"No, not really," he answered.

"You know, I'd prefer it if you just settled down with a steady girlfriend. If you ask me, I think she should be a bit older than you, so she can take care of you. What do you think?"

"I'm all right, mom, really. It doesn't really matter to me." With that, blackness covered his sight. Suddenly, a cold voice resonated through his mind. _So, what's it like to be back home?_ What? He'd heard this voice before, but where? _Don't you remember me?_ It asked, the syllables bouncing around, jumbling together. Suddenly, a high-pitched laugh filled his head. It was unbearable, evil, cold. Cloud's eyes shot open, and the laugh faded, yet Cloud could still hear its remnants sounding, and the voice far away, saying something he could not hear. Was I asleep? Cloud thought, jolted back into the real world. Glancing at the clock on the wall, Cloud noted that it was nearly 11:30, which meant that Aeris would be asleep by now. Silently, Cloud slipped out of bed, and silently cracked the door open. The house was as quiet as a grave. Without making a sound, Cloud tiptoed down the hall to the staircase. Careful not to make a single sound, he crept down the stairs like a snail. When he finally reached the bottom, Cloud paused and listened. He couldn't hear anything save for the faint tick of a clock somewhere. Cloud sneaked to the door, which he found unlocked, and quietly slipped out of the door, with only a tiny sound as he closed it. Straightening up, Cloud walked off into the night, headed for Sector 7

Cloud wandered around the silent neighborhood, listening for any kind of sound. Sometimes, he could hear a light scuffle in the background, but every time he swung his head around to search for that sound, he couldn't see a thing. Shrugging each time, Cloud picked his way back to the intersection. Aeris said that it was the other fork that led to Sector 6, which he would go through to get to Sector 7. A large, cracked concrete hole in a wall looked much more like a cave entrance than a sector gate. As Cloud loosened his sheathe, preparing to go through the gateway, someone yelled from behind him. Swinging around and putting a hand to his sword, he saw, much to his dismay, Aeris running towards him with her chrome rod in her hand.

"Hey, wait for me!" she yelled as she ran towards him. Astonished, Cloud dropped his guard.

"Aeris! You shouldn't be here," Cloud exclaimed urgently, "Why are you here, anyway?"

"I thought you wanted to get to Sector 7," Aeris sniffed, slightly hurt that Cloud didn't want her to go.

"Well, I don't want you coming because… because I don't want you to get hurt," Cloud said in a more gentle tone, "How did you know I left? I didn't make a sound when I left."

"Well, I was wide awake, thinking about something, and I heard the front door open and close," Aeris explained. Cloud shrugged. "Anyway, I'm coming with you! You don't know the way to get to Sector 7, and Sector 6 is rather dangerous, so I'm coming with you, whether you want me to or not!" she said firmly, determined to go with Cloud.

"Well, I guess I can't stop you from coming," Cloud said, admitting defeat, "I'll let you come, but you have to promise me that you won't get into trouble."

"Don't worry, I live in the slums. Here, you have to be able to protect yourself. And besides, we don't know what could be lurking around in the dark, so I can't really promise you. But I'll try really hard not to," Aeris promised him, her eyes twinkling like the stars that couldn't be seen. With that, she skipped through the gateway. "Hey, wait up!" Cloud yelled, chasing after her through the hole in the wall.


	4. Unnerving Twists

****

Unnerving Twists

"See, it's not as nice around here as it is where I live," Aeris pointed out as she ascended a wooden staircase, testing each step as though it might fall apart.

Grunting his agreement with her, Cloud trudged along after her. It looked like his bodyguard job was going to last a bit longer than he initially expected it to. Suddenly, Cloud noticed a faint, scratching noise somewhere around him. Aeris, however, didn't seem to notice it.

"Hold on a second, I think we're being followed," Cloud murmured to her. After she fell silent, Cloud listened intently for the scratching sound again. The scraping noise came again, but it appeared to come from a different direction. The sounds became more and more pronounced as the seconds ticked by. Cloud quickly scanned the area around them, but he couldn't see anything in the shadows. Whoever was following them was very good at hiding.

"Um, Cloud?" Aeris broke out, sounding frightened. "Not now, I'm pretty sure we're being followed," Cloud whispered in reply. "Yes, _now_," Aeris insisted as she grabbed his arm. Cloud whirled quickly, ready to reprimand her for disturbing him, but the words were on the tip of his tongue when he noticed a creature. Its eyes were as black as the night, and it had a body similar to that of a leech, yet out of its sides protruded six spindly legs, each ending in a sharp claw. It had a thick-looking hide, light purple in color. It wouldn't have appeared to be very menacing if not for the fact that it had row after row of sharp, needle-like teeth in its mouth. It gave a hiss, and drops of saliva dripped to the ground. Hearing more hissing behind him, Cloud swung himself around and found three or four more of these five-foot long creatures surrounding the two on the platform they were on.

"Do you know how to use Materia?" Cloud asked Aeris urgently.

"Sure, I've got some. Do you need to borrow any?" She asked.

"No, I'm fine. Can you keep yourself safe?" Suddenly, one of the monsters lunged towards him. In a heartbeat, Cloud threw up a wall of flame, causing the attacker to rebound of with a scorched mouth as a reminder.

Aeris jabbed her rod at one of the things, knocking out a tooth or two. A third monster lunged towards Aeris, and ended up with a bad case of frostbite. Cloud unsheathed his blade and leapt in among the creatures, twirling his sword in wide sweeps. Unfortunately, the creatures were quite nimble, and most managed to dodge the whirling blade. Yet, Cloud's maneuver was not done in vain. One of the creatures didn't manage to escape the sword and ended up with a severed limb and several deep gashes around its mouth. Sweeping his sword in another quick swipe, Cloud cut through the hides of another of the horrible creatures. One reared on its hind legs, emitting a high shriek as it tried to bear down on Cloud. Calmly, Cloud rammed his sword up through the monster's throat, right behind the eyes. A green mess dribbled down the thing's belly.

Sliding his sword out of the creature, Cloud swiftly stabbed the new threat through its upper palate, through the brain. He left his opponent twitching on the ground in its dying spasms. Cloud twirled around to find Aeris trying to cope with the other two creatures. Though skilled with her rod, she couldn't do much other than bruise the monsters. Suddenly, as the two creatures were preparing for a fresh assault, Aeris rammed one end of her rod into the ground with a clear ring, and flames erupted where one of the creatures was. Hissing in agony, it stumbled out of the firestorm, its carapace blazing as the flames consumed it. Seeing what had happened to its companions, the remaining critter hissed menacingly at the pair as it retreated into the shadows. About to give chase, Cloud remembered that he was supposed to guard Aeris, not run after some stupid critter, albeit a dangerous one.

"Are you alright?" Cloud asked, searching for any other threats that might have remained hidden.

"Of course! I live in the slums, don't I?" Aeris replied with enthusiasm.

"Well, it's not like you can handle _everything_ just because you live in the slums," Cloud argued, cleaning his sword of the green goo that covered his sword.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean!" Aeris protested, stamping her foot as she spoke.

"Well, what would you need a bodyguard for?" Cloud asked, sheathing his blade and giving Aeris a sidelong glance.

"Oh, it's because I was bored and wanted to give you something to do!" Aeris finished somewhat lamely as she led Cloud through the rest of the jumble of wood, steel, and asphalt. Presently, they came to a chain link fence, the entrance into a barren playground. It wasn't much of a playground anymore, for the swings were detached from the bars that held them. The grass, supposing there used to be any grass, must have been buried under the dark dirt and left to rot. The only structure in the entire playground that still remained intact was a large pink slide, the same color as Aeris's dress. It appeared to be some sort of animal, but its features were so cartoon-like that Cloud could only guess what the thing was supposed to be.

"Wow, I can't believe that it's still here!" Aeris exclaimed, running over to examine the slide. Cloud scratched his head.

"Don't you come here all the time?" Cloud asked, baffled.

"No, I don't. The last time I came around here must have been two or three years ago," Aeris replied thoughtfully, "Anyway, you know how long it takes for the gangs around here to destroy something. They nearly demolished the slums in that large gang war that took place last year."

"That's true, if the slum police hadn't united to keep those gangs from tearing the entire lower half of the city apart, there might not be a lower part of Midgar," Cloud asserted.

"Come sit on top of the slide and talk with me," Aeris persuaded, running around to climb onto the head of the slide, between the ears.

"What's wrong with just standing here?" Cloud shouted after her as she appeared on top of the slide.

"My legs are tired, come on!" Aeris prompted, laughing as she spoke. Shrugging his shoulders, Cloud followed to oblige her, swinging himself up next to her.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" Cloud asked tentatively after an awkward moment of silence.

"I was just wondering, what class were you when you were in SOLDIER?" Aeris inquired.

"Hmm, I was in First Class," Cloud said, "Why do you want to know?"

"Just like him," Aeris muttered, "Did you know a person named Zack, when you were in SOLDIER?"

"I don't know him. Who is he?" Cloud asked, frowning, "I _should_ know him, though. Not so many people make it into First Class."

"He was my boyfriend, at least for a while," Aeris said, immersing herself in her memories, "Then he left to go on a mission a few years back and never came back. I suppose he found someone else."

"Were you two serious?" Cloud asked her.

"No, but I liked him for a while," Aeris said, but Cloud felt that Aeris was probably not telling him the unblemished truth. Then again, it was quite a personal question.

"It's funny, though," Aeris continued, "You're almost exactly like him, a perfect replica. You don't look the same, but the way you act, the way you think, reminds me so much of him."

"I think it's funny that I don't know who he is," Cloud interjected, frowning at this new development, "After all-" He didn't manage to finish what he was saying, for the steel gates to Sector 7 suddenly slid noiselessly open, and out pranced a chocobo. Chocobos were feathered creatures rather like ostriches. They could run at extremely high speeds, and sometimes were raced for sport. Yet, they never evolved to actually fly. Though, unlike an ostrich, chocobos were not at all defenseless. Clawed feet provided a formidable weapon. In addition, a huge, curved beak enabled them to crush bones. Luckily, chocobos wouldn't attack anyone unless defending their nests, for they were vegetarians. This one was reined to a brightly painted carriage with a neatly dressed man with a brown mustache and a top hat holding the reins. The sight was made yet more peculiar when Cloud saw what was poking out of the back of the carriage. Staring, Cloud found himself looking at Tifa, though not dressed in her standard attire. Aeris followed Cloud's stare as the carriage disappeared into the slums of Sector 6, otherwise known as the Wall Market.

"Who was that girl you were looking at?" Aeris asked, jarring Cloud from his thoughts.

"That was Tifa, but she looked a bit odd. She doesn't usually dress like that. I wonder what she's up to?" Cloud said thoughtfully, slowly pulling himself to his feet.

"Whatever she's doing, she's in for lots of trouble. Sector 6 is dangerous, especially for girls like her," Aeris informed him as she sprang off of the slide and ran after the carriage.

"Wait! Aren't you-" Cloud began, but gave up as he chased after Aeris into the sandy path leading to the Wall Market.

Cloud stepped out onto the gravel path leading into the Wall Market, and he found Aeris waiting for him under a green sign labeled "South Entrance." The complex was lit up with hundreds of neon lights, blinding Cloud with the bright glare. People stood in front of their shops, yelling for people to come in and buy something. Though the place bustled with life and appeared to be welcoming, Cloud could not help feeling somewhat uncomfortable. It was as if the atmosphere of the area bore a feeling of uneasiness. He eyed bystanders suspiciously, as if they were all in a plot against him.

"I lost the carriage," Aeris told him rather gloomily, "It disappeared somewhere in here, though. I'm sure of that."

"Well, I guess we don't have a choice but to poke around," Cloud replied, loosening his sheathe. He wasn't taking any chances here. Aeris and Cloud strode into the complex, the gravel crunching under their feet. They wandered around haphazardly, asking every person whether they had seen a brown-haired girl wearing a blue dress or the chocobo coach. At first, they had treaded into a group of thugs, who fruitlessly tried to shoot Cloud with low caliber pistols. Aeris shrieked with fright, and Cloud, with the guise of a calm mercenary, pointed at the offending guns. It didn't take the thugs very long to realize that the metal had become extremely hot. They yelped and dropped their red guns to the ground, where they melted out of any definable shape.

"You, you used magic! What an undignified trick!" one of the ruffians sputtered in disbelief, as if they had been acting chivalrously all along. Cloud smiled, "Oh, undignified? Did you mean yourselves, or me?" His calm tone of voice did not faze his opponents as they snatched their daggers out of their respective sheathes. "Ruffians never cease to surprise me," Cloud muttered, drawing his own sword. His opponents' anger kept them from seeing the impossibility of their managing to defeat him. Aeris backed away a few feet. She didn't want to be caught in this clash of blades. The thugs slowly advanced in a semicircle, keeping their eyes on Cloud's sword.

"You gotta be jokin', nobody can wield a sword as big as that one!" one of the thugs spat. Seconds later, Cloud swung his sword in a mighty arc, causing all of the thugs to jump back. Swiftly, without missing a beat, Cloud swished his blade in a downward arc, slicing through the leader's dagger like a hot knife through butter. The piece of steel clattered to the ground as the thug stared at the stub of a knife he had left. The others lowered their own weapons. After a few seconds, they all broke ranks and fled as fast as their feet could carry them. Cloud laughed heartily at their escape. Aeris ran up and searched for gunshot wounds that weren't there.

"Did they miss you?" she inquired, confused after finding no bullet holes. Cloud, equally confused at her inspection, snickered, "The bullets were long gone. They hit my shield."

"What shield?" Aeris wanted to know.

"It's a shield created by my armlet," Cloud explained, "It draws its energy from what _you_ can endure."

"I see," Aeris said, furrowing her brows as she spoke, "Can I have one too? Where can you get them?"

"Well, I guess I should probably buy you one. They're dead useful, and it would probably spare me some trouble. As for obtaining one, we can find one in an arms shop. There should be one around here somewhere," Cloud said after a moment of deliberation. "If we come across a shop I'll get you one, but we have to find out where Tifa is right now." Cloud and Aeris talked to several other people, but they had no success until they spoke to a burly man with dark hair. Upon hearing their description, he scratched his head with one hairy arm and said, "I haven't seen the girl you've described, but if she's with the chocobo coachman, then I'm pretty sure she's goin' to the Don."

"Wait, then you know where she is?" Cloud injected, excited about their new lead.

"Well, not exactly," the man continued, "I'd check with the Honey Bee Inn first."

"Why the hell would she be at an inn?" Cloud wondered aloud, receiving an astonished look from the man.

"Whoa, the Honey Bee isn't an inn, it's a brothel. It's down that way," the man said, pointing down a marble path.

"A _what_?" Cloud practically yelled, causing his informant to cringe, "What would she be doing _there_?"

"Um, well, uh, I didn't say I was _sure_ about where she was. I only told you what I thought," the man said meekly, taking a few steps back. Noticing he had frightened the poor guy, Cloud assured him that he wasn't about to chop his head off, which probably scared him even more because the guy ran away.

"Let's go talk with the manager of the place," Cloud said, heading down the path.

"Wait, don't make too much trouble, or else we might not get anything done!" Aeris called after him, "And don't forget the armor!" A few minutes later, Cloud saw an enormous, flashy sign consisting of two happy faces around the words "Honey Bee Inn." There appeared to be an argument in front of the place. _This place disgusts me_, Cloud thought. Suddenly, a fat man in a sweater-vest pounced on him.

"Hey, you interested in membership for the wonderful Honey Bee Inn?" He inquired, "And since I'm the manager of this here-"

"I'm not interested in a dump like this," Cloud growled, not wanting to find out what he was planning to call his brothel, "I want to know if you've heard of a girl named Tifa."

"Hey, you're one sharp kid! Tifa's our newest addition," the manager exclaimed jovially, still hoping to snare another customer. Unfortunately, Cloud wasn't in the mood to be entertained.

"Where is she?" Cloud asked him, grabbing the guy buy the collar. Aeris shot him a warning glance, a reminder to be civil to the poor guy. Cloud reluctantly released the manager.

"Um, well, she's not _here_. She's at the Don's," the manager stammered, "You know, Don Corneo, the millionaire around here. His mansion's up in the other direction, away from the Honey Bee. You should check out his mansion. She's there for an interview."

"Well, in that case, we're going to pay Corneo a visit," Cloud told Aeris, leaving the frightened manager to himself. Aeris followed without another glance at the manager. The two wove their way through the crowd towards Corneo's mansion. Suddenly, Aeris pointed out a brightly-lit arms shop.

"Do you want to get my armor thing now, or is it too much for you to expend a few minutes in there?" Aeris wanted to know. Cloud, feeling better knowing Tifa's whereabouts, gladly obliged. The store was fairly large, but only a few people were in here. Cloud found it fairly easy to find a decent bracelet for Aeris. Taking it up to the counter, the sales clerk, terrified by the enormous sword slung across Cloud's back, immediately gave them a 50% discount to avoid trouble of any kind. Aeris kindly thanked him and they departed. Behind the sliding doors, the clerk sighed with relief.

They walked around a bit more, looking for the mansion that their prey lived in. Suddenly, Cloud saw an ugly building. It was an asymmetrical object painted in bright colors. It looked expensive, certainly, but the structure had no subtlety, no art. It was made to be ostentatious, to show off Corneo's wealth. As a matter of fact, it looked like a gaily-painted office building with no apparent use. Disgusted, Cloud shook his head. "Come on, let's get this business over with," he grumbled, uneasy about charging into some rich guy's mansion. Cloud didn't have to wait long before the guard, who Cloud had mistaken for a passerby, yelled out for him to halt. Surprised, Cloud stopped dead in his tracks. Upon seeing who spoke, Cloud snorted and began to take another step towards the mansion.

"Whoa, you can't go in there," the apparent guard said, stepping in front of them, "Only females are allowed to even _think_ about entering the Corneo Mansion. So, you can't go in, but she can."

"Oh, really? So I can actually meet the great and grand Don Corneo?" Aeris squealed excitedly as Cloud stared in disbelief. When the guard affirmed this, Aeris promptly dragged Cloud away, calling over her shoulder, "Hold on, I'll be right back!" Once out of hearing range, Cloud asked, "What in the world was _that_ about?"

"The way, I see it, there's only two things we can do," Aeris outlined, "First, you can dress up like a girl in order to get in there."

"That is _definitely_ not going to happen," Cloud grumbled, knowing what was coming up.

"The other option is for me to go in first to try and find Tifa, and you come in _when it is safe_ for you to do so without getting caught," Aeris finished.

"I like the second option better than the first. Let's do it," Cloud decided, "But your toy is mine for the time being. You can't walk in there with a weapon." Just seconds later, Cloud took his place in the dark shadows of the alley with Aeris's rod, watching the front door. Aeris, on the other hand, was waltzing down back towards the guard. She said something to the guy, and disappeared behind the mansion's double-doors. The guard slipped in behind her, as if to take Aeris to Corneo himself. _This is my chance to get in_, Cloud thought, rushing to the mansion. Peeking in, Cloud found an empty hall that looked like something taken out of ancient Rome. _Oh well, I'm not going to complain. There's plenty of nooks and crannies for me to hide out in_, Cloud thought, slipping soundlessly into the hall. He crept along until he heard footsteps from around the corner. Without a sound, he melted into the shadows of a large pillar and waited for the people to pass. When he could no longer hear the footsteps, Cloud peeked out. Seeing nobody, he continued along the corridors. Suddenly, he heard a bunch of voices.

"I never thought I'd see the day that more than one girl would volunteer to be Corneo's lover!" one guy said.

"Me neither, those two must be some crazy people," the other person exclaimed. He sounded like his mouth was full of food or something. Cloud rolled his eyes and muttered, "These guys need to go to sleep." Unleashing a certain type of magic that induced sleep, Cloud listened to the two yawning until he could hear their incessantly loud snoring. He quietly slipped out into a large hall that looked like something taken out of an ancient palace. He glanced at the two snoring men and saw that one still had a mouthful of donut. _Oh well, I'm not about to lose any sleep if that guy chokes_, Cloud thought, as he charged up the stairs. Glancing around, he saw a dark passageway, which stood out because everything else appeared to be glaringly bright. _Maybe I should check out that passage. There might be something useful there_, Cloud thought as he slipped into the dark passage. He nearly fell over when he found out that it wasn't a passage, but a set of stone stairs. "It's just like a friggin' castle _dungeon_," Cloud muttered under his breath. He was taken aback by the sight that awaited him at the bottom of the stairs. At the bottom, he found both Aeris and Tifa sitting there.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Tifa gasped when she saw him.

"To get you! Why in the world are _you_ here?" Cloud retorted.

"Ah, well that's a long story," Tifa began, "It began when we were going back to- wait, is it safe for _her_ to hear this?"

"I don't think it can hurt. Hurry up before someone comes to get you guys," Cloud said quickly.

"Alright," Tifa said, still slightly dubious, "Anyway, after you fell, the rest of us got through the mission without any trouble. At least, we didn't find any trouble until we caught a guy that was tailing us. Barret squeezed him for information, which wasn't too hard. You know how intimidating he can be."

"And Corneo's name popped out of his mouth," Cloud guessed, knowing the rest of the story.

"Yeah, so I'm here to squeeze information out of Corneo. Like why he's got a guy tailing us."

"And more importantly, if he was employed by Shinra," Cloud said.

"Unfortunately, _she_ came and disrupted the plan. Now I don't know which of us he'll pick to be his, uh, bedmate for the night."

"You sound like you two are the _only_ ones in on this," Aeris complained.

"That's because we _are_ the only ones in on this," Cloud said in a very matter-of-fact tone.

"No you're not, I'm here too!" Aeris protested. Tifa and Cloud both gave each other an exasperated glance. "Fine, if you want to come along with AVALANCHE, you're in," Cloud said, hoping to draw Aeris away by naming a group with a notoriously bad reputation according to Shinra.

"AVALANCHE? Great! I never really liked Shinra all that much. They never do _anything _to help the poor civilians!" Aeris exclaimed excitedly, which was not the reaction Cloud was expecting. Suddenly, he heard footsteps at the top of the steps. Ducking out of sight, Cloud waited for the guy to take the two girls up to Corneo. The two docilely ascended the steps to enter the owner's office. When the coast was clear, Cloud left the room. The largest, most decorative door pointed out Corneo's room. Cloud checked and pressed his ear to the door, listening to the conversation inside.

"Line up in front of the Don, Ladies," a male voice announced.

"Hmm, this is indeed a very difficult choice. I don't know which one to pick," an oily voice, probably Corneo's, "Should it be this one? Or should it be the other?"

"I think you-"

"Shut up! I wasn't asking you!" Oily-voice yelled. The other guy immediately ceased speaking, "I think that I should take _this_ one!" he finally announced after another minute of contemplation, "You may have the other as a gift."

"Wow, thanks sir!" the other person sputtered excitedly. _I wonder which one Corneo chose,_ Cloud thought. He heard a curtain swish and footsteps approaching the door. _It's time to give this guy a surprise,_ Cloud thought, swinging himself up between the two pillars in front of the door. He didn't have a very good hold, but it would have to do. Seconds later, the door swung open and Aeris walked out, staying clear of the shadow that she had noticed while coming out. The other, a guy with a dark complexion dressed like a formal pirate, did not, unfortunately for him, notice the shadow as Aeris did. The result was that he felt a very painful object strike his head as Cloud hurled himself at the man with the force of a ton of bricks. Cloud got up and threw the man over the railing to join him with his snoring comrades.

"Well, that was an easy infiltration," Cloud said, stretching, "Now let's go interrogate Corneo." He handed Aeris her rod and the two swept into the room and waited for an opportune moment to charge into Corneo's bedroom. Cloud heard Corneo trying to woo Tifa, and he also heard Tifa cleverly avoiding his proposals. Yet, she didn't' happen to be having any luck convincing Corneo to spill the beans, so Cloud gave Aeris a quick nod and they charged into the room, weapons drawn. Tifa leapt off the bed and pulled on leather padding lined with pieces of steel. Corneo practically bounced onto his ass and crawled into the corner of his bed.

"Alright, Corneo, talk," Cloud commanded. Corneo, eyeing Cloud's sword warily, said, "Talk? Talk about what?"

"Tell us who told you to send a guy after the guy with the gun arm," Tifa said, flexing her muscles.

"Oh, I can't tell you about that. I don't even know-" Corneo began.

"Cut the crap," Cloud interrupted, "Or I could simply make _sure_ you don't make any offspring. I'm sure my sword is sharp enough to be a scalpel," he added menacingly.

"Oh, please don't do that!" Corneo gulped, sweat streaming down his forehead, "They'll kill me if I even say just one word!"

"Well, I'm sure you would tell us if I offered a more painful way," Aeris piped up, "I think I could rip it off."

"No! Don't- don't, do that!" Corneo sputtered desperately, "I'll tell you what they asked. All they asked me to do was find out where the guy with the gun arm went every day, where he lived. They said it would be an easy job and that there wouldn't be any complications!"

"You still didn't answer our question. Who sent you?" Tifa demanded, "If you don't tell, I suppose we could let you keep your balls. However, I'd have to smash them to insure that you don't bother any more women." At this, the color simply drained out of Corneo's face at the prospect of being the only male in Sector 5 with a smashed reproductive system.

"Alright! Alright! I'll tell! Just don't do it!" Corneo wailed, "It was Heidegger! Heidegger of Shinra! He said that he'd just wanted to know where the rebel group AVALANCHE had their base! He said that he was going to drop the plate and wipe out the rebels forever!"

"What? But so many innocent people will die!" Aeris protested, shocked by the information.

"Well, that's Shinra for you. We're probably too late to save the people there," Tifa said sadly.

"No, we still have a chance. Let's get to Sector 7 before Shinra can drop the plate." Cloud said resolutely, "I doubt Barret will let them just walk all over us." With that, the three turned to leave. Just as they were about to exit through the curtain, Corneo called out, "Wait, just for a second. I want to ask you a question."

"Go ahead. What is it?" Cloud asked as the three of them paused at the foot of the bed.

"Why do you think I tell you these things?" Corneo inquired.

"I don't know, because you want to keep your balls intact?" Cloud guessed.

"I think that's the wrong answer!" Corneo proclaimed, pushing a hidden button cleverly incorporated into the bed's headboard. Suddenly, the floor beneath them opened up and the three dropped below into the darkness as Corneo's oily laughs followed them down.

Cloud slammed down onto his feet into a large puddle of dirty water. Aeris and Tifa tumbled down next to him. "Are we alright?" Cloud asked, helping Aeris and Tifa up.

"Where are we?" Aeris groaned as she got to her feet.

"It appears that we're somewhere in the sewers of Midgar," Cloud answered, taking a quick glance at the long dark tunnels and the filthy waters. Suddenly, a roar penetrated through the darkness.

"I have a feeling we aren't alone," Tifa said as the three readied themselves for whatever beast was about to come after them. Suddenly, a wall of sewage water came rushing towards them. The three channeled their magic to create a powerful barrier that stopped the rush of water. Yet, something was behind it. Suddenly, an aqua fist with a broken chain attached to the wrist smashed through the wave, shattering the barrier and knocking the three of them back onto their backs. The wall of water rushed over them, drenching them in sewage. When Cloud got to his feet, he saw an enormous aqua humanoid beast with yellowed teeth. It appeared to have broken the chains that had kept it in check, and bulging muscles showed its incredible strength. In its eyes, it had a bright orange ring. It's sharpened nails on both its feet and fingers finished its menacing look. Again, it bellowed a challenge at its opponents.

Cloud rushed in among its swinging fists, nimbly leaping in and out of its reach. Soon, the monster's wrists became riddled with hundreds of deep gashes, each of which dripped drops of dark blood. Though successful at his attack, the beast showed no signs of weakening significantly and they were running out of time. With the information of AVALANCHE's whereabouts, Shinra might act at any given moment. Suddenly, flares of bright fire burned in its fact. The monster's immediate reaction was to raise its hands to shield itself from the flames. Seizing his chance, Cloud drove in his sword into the bulging abdomen and ripped his sword upwards, slicing through delicate tissues. Roaring, the beast knew it had lost and could only make feeble attempts to fight its opponents as the sewage at its feet turned red from the blood that gushed unchecked from its ruined abdomen. Suddenly, its eyes rolled up into its head and it keeled over and ceased to move.

"Now is our chance!" Cloud ordered, "We gotta get ourselves out of this sewer and up into Sector 7!" With that, the three raced into the dark tunnels of the Midgar sewer system to search a way out.


	5. Life's Ups and Downs

****

Life's Ups and Downs

"How do we get out of this place anyway?" Tifa asked, exasperated after travelling down countless tunnels one after another.

"There has to be some sort of ladder that takes us up to the slums," Cloud replied, not sure if they would ever find one, "They can't be completely cut off of the sewer system!"

"Maybe the ladders are concealed behind something?" Aeris proposed, eyeing the slime-covered walls nervously, as if something would jump out at them.

"I don't think so. I haven't seen anything that-" Cloud began, but cut off when he heard, quite distinctly, a loud splashing noise further down the tunnel.

"Is it just me, or did someone else hear that splash?" Tifa asked the rest of the group, staring avidly into the darkness.

"I heard it, but I'm not quite sure what it could be. I'm not aware of anything living down here except for that huge sewer beast." Cloud replied, his hand moving towards the hilt of his sword.

"Do you think it could be another one of those things? They seem to thrive on the sewage around here," Aeris squeaked nervously. Suddenly, without warning a shoddy trident came spinning out of nowhere, nearly spearing one of them. There was no doubt that something hostile was somewhere in that darkness.

"Try to blind it!" Cloud ordered, dodging another of the tridents be kicking off of the tunnel walls. Seconds later, bright flares of light were shot down into the darkness, illuminating the creatures. Cloud's first impression was that the things were huge tortoises that stood upright. Yet, they had a humanoid appearance, as if it were just a green, scaly human wearing a shell. There were so many that the three of them might not be able to hold them off. Frantically searching for a way out of the place, Cloud spied an ancient, rusty ladder. His eyes followed it up into another dark hole.

"Quick, let's get out of here while they're still dazed!" Cloud shouted, gesturing frantically at the ladder. Tifa and Aeris ran for it, scrabbling up the ladder like mice from cats. Cloud quickly followed them, hearing the whistle of the tridents flying through the air. Finally, the three burst out of a manhole in what seemed to be a junkyard. Slamming the cover back down, Cloud gazed at his surroundings, trying to ascertain where they were.

"Hey, I know where we are!" Tifa exclaimed joyfully, "We're in the Train Graveyard. The station is over there!" She gestured across the mess of destroyed trains.

"Great," Cloud groaned, "More obstacles. At least we know where to go now." With that, he took a deep breath and began to climb the closest train to him. The others followed him, relying on Cloud to get them through the maze of trains. Helping the girls onto the roof of the trains, Cloud stared at the maze of trains, trying the find a feasible path they could take without much delay.

"Come on, I think we have to go somewhere along this train and switch to that other one that's collided with this one. That way, we should be able to reach the train station that Tifa was talking about," Cloud planned, pointing as he mapped their path through the smashed trains. When he had completed dictating their path through the mess of steel and other metal alloys, Cloud and his companions raced as fast as they could by way of the path mapped out for them. Yet, when Cloud placed a foot on a seemingly sturdy metal crane arm, he felt the bridge creak ominously beneath his weight. Immediately, he backed off, wildly searching for another way across. At that moment, however, Tifa plowed into him, shoving him forward onto the bridge. For a second, Cloud thought that the bridge held his weight. Then, the other end of the bridge screeched as the sharp ends sliced through the weakened, rusty walls of an old compartment. Cloud rode the falling structure like a surfboard until the moment just before it made contact with the ground. At that crucial moment, Cloud pushed off forcefully with both feet and shot out of the billowing dust like a cannonball, landing on the other side.

"Cloud! Are you alright?" a voice wandered out of the clouds of dust as Cloud waited for them to dissipate. Slowly, the dust thinned out, and Cloud could see the faint outlines of the two girls across the gap that separated them. Waving his arms until they acknowledged his safety, Cloud scanned the entire length of the train for another crossing point. Finding one a hundred yards or so further down, Cloud pointed as he yelled back, "There's another place you two can cross down there! I'll meet you guys there!"

"No, you go ahead. We'll meet up at the station," Tifa shouted back at him. Cloud nodded and continued his course along the wrecked trains, taking huge strides in his attempt to reach Sector 7 as soon as he possibly could. About halfway to the station, Cloud heard distant sounds, mostly low-pitched booms. _It sounds like they're having a war down there, _Cloud thought as he leaped and sprinted along the trains like a trained athlete. He glanced back and saw Tifa and Aeris picking their way across the mess. Suddenly, a loud screech caused Cloud to stumble. Barely regaining his footing, he twisted his head only to catch a glance of a single, steel bird flying towards him. Cloud dove and hugged the roof of the compartment he happened to be standing on as the bird whooshed by him. He got to his feet, and as the flying conglomerate of blender blades glided towards him, he placed a hand on the hilt of his sword.

Sure that it was going to kill the thing that had intruded upon its territory, the steel-clad bird, whose kind created nests at places where lots of metal and ores were located, picked up speed, ready to gouge the fleshy thing. Yet, Cloud was more than ready to handle a solitary bird. Just before the claws could scratch him, he sidestepped and flashed out he sword, bringing it down in a vertical cut, shearing off its left wing. The bird, no longer able to stay aloft, wavered before losing altitude. Unable to control its flight, the bird plowed into the Plexiglas windows of the adjacent car, shattering the hardy material and coming out dazed on the other side. Hot blood was pouring out of the open wound as it lay there in agony. By this time, Tifa and Aeris had caught up to Cloud.

"What held you? You didn't decide to wait for us here, did you?" Tifa asked as Cloud shot her a look of annoyance, sheathing his sword. He pointed to the crippled bird and held up the shorn wing. "Oh, you didn't have to explain to that exact a degree," Tifa said weakly as blood dripped from the wing into a shallow pool of blood on the room of the compartment. Cloud tossed it away and said, "Let's go, we don't know how much time the people have before the plate comes crashing down." With that, they jogged the last few yards to reach the station. The booms became much more distinct as they neared the station.

"Barret and the rest of them are probably holding off Shinra in order to save the Sector!" Tifa exclaimed as they sped towards the chain fence that allowed them to enter the sector. With his steel shoulder pad, Cloud rammed the gate, violently knocking open the door. Seconds later, the other two burst into the area, where several spectators had gathered. Two guards, who seemed thoroughly appalled at the battle that raged above them that they did not think to either help Shinra crush the renegade group or drive the bystanders away from the action. They just stood there stupidly watching the flashes of gunfire above. For a moment, Cloud and Tifa stood there, astounded. Then, Aeris snapped them back to the real world.

"Hey you two! We have to stop Shinra from destroying the sector!" Aeris exclaimed. Suddenly, someone fell from the top scaffolding, where the controls for manipulating the pillar support strength was located. A great groan came out of the audience, shaking Cloud from his reverie. He leapt and tried to catch a wounded Wedge to break his fall, but as his hand closed in on his shirt, the cloth ripped, and a scrap came away in his hand. Since he was depending on using Wedges weight as he dropped back to the ground, Cloud tumbled through the air and plowed into a bunch of bushes a few feet away. Despite his own fall, Cloud could still hear a very clear thump and a very audible cracking sound, signifying something broken. Dragging himself to his feet, Cloud hurried over to Wedge, who already had Tifa and Aeris kneeling over him. Looking down, he saw a pair of frightened eyes staring back at him grow yet wider.

"Cloud… you came," Wedge choked as blood leaked out of his mouth. It appeared that Wedge would no longer be able to do much, if he was able to do anything at all, assuming he got out of this ordeal alive.

"Where does it hurt?" Tifa asked him, frantic to try and save his life. Wedge almost smiled and managed to choke out, "No matter… what happens…" Suddenly falling silent, Tifa asked him the same question over and over again.

"There isn't anything we can do about it," Cloud muttered, looking at Wedge's chest wounds and the blood that soaked his shirt, "We have to get up there and save anyone who's still alive! If Shinra manages to take over the pillar, there won't be anybody left here! Wiping her eyes free of tears, Tifa nodded and stood up.

"Could you go to a bar called Seventh Heaven?" Tifa asked, turning to Aeris, "There's a little girl in there called Marlene. Take her somewhere safe, would you please?" Aeris nodded gravely and disappeared down the street. "Hey, you two!" Tifa called, addressing the two guards, "Get these people somewhere safe! This place might fall at any given second!" The guards, surprised at hearing such a rational order coming from some little girl who lived in the slums, tried to usher the crowd away from the pillar without questioning the girl's authority. For just a second, Cloud and Tifa looked at each other, as if assuring each other that it was going to end up being alright, that Sector 7 would be saved. Perhaps they would have stared at each other for an eternity, but the sound of gunfire on the platform above them forced them out of their reverie. They nodded, just once, to each other and dashed to the broken chain gate. There they stopped, surveying the time it would take them to get to the top.

"It's going to take us at least seven minutes to get to the platform," Cloud announced, eyeing the steel stairs with distrust, "If we dash the way up, we might be able to get there before Barret's overrun. However, if we meet up with some resistance on the way..." Cloud trailed off, knowing that if they encountered any trouble on the way up, their chances of saving Sector 7 would be drastically reduced. Without another word, the two of them raced up the stairs, which were wound around the pillar. It wasn't long before they found Biggs, his body braced against the pillar, in terrible condition. Though not quite dead, numerous gashes, both long and deep, showed just how much pain he was enduring. Upon seeing Cloud, he tried to straighten himself up, but gave up in a howl of pain.

"Barret's on the platform with Wedge," Biggs told them. Jessie's further up the pillar. Shinra really did give us everything they had..." He laughed weakly, but suddenly gave a gawked at something beyond the railing. Cloud swiveled and saw what looked like a guy in a spacesuit with helicopter blades whirring above his head. Cloud noted that they were attached to the helmet, leaving the hands free. Suddenly, without warning, the helicopter trooper plunged towards them. Cloud quickly brought his blade up, hoping to jam the propellers. Yet, whether the blades were spinning too fast or there was some other force existent, Cloud's blade merely glanced off of the edge. However, the person was thrown back and he tripped on the railing, causing him to tumble head over heels in the air. Cloud took advantage of this situation to point the tip of his sword at the helpless trooper. Taking careful aim, Cloud loosed a continuous stream of electricity. Just as he expected, the trooper did not bother to insulate his suit, probably thinking it wasn't necessary. After a few seconds, something malfunctioned, and black smoke billowed out of the man's back. No longer able to sustain his position in the air, the unfortunate soldier fell down.

"Come on, we have to go," Cloud said, turning to his companions. Biggs shook his head, indicating for them to go ahead without him. "Well, in that case get somewhere safe just in case we can't stop Shinra," Cloud commanded as he and Tifa began to ascend again. Biggs feebly rose and dragged himself down the stairs. Not long after leaving Biggs to get to safe ground, a shower of bullets fell upon them. Though none managed to hit Cloud or Tifa, they recoiled nonetheless. Glancing up, Cloud noticed a chopper above the platform firing at something at the top. The bullets had apparently whizzed through the mesh platform and towards them.

"Better stay low to avoid the bullets. I don't think appearing on the platform riddled with them is going to cause any consternation among the enemy," Cloud said with the slightest hint of amusement. Quietly, yet quickly, the two rescuers sneaked up the stairs. After a few minutes of climbing, they caught a glimpse of Jessie in a heap. Tifa called out to her, but no response came back from the limp form. Upon reaching Jessie, they found that she bore scores of the same kinds of cuts that had brought down Biggs. Since she was unconscious, there wasn't much they could do about her.

"Should we take her with us?" Tifa asked. Cloud looked upwards at the pillar's support mechanisms.

"I don't think we can do that," Cloud responded slowly after a moment's thought, "It'd slow us down too much and I don't know what we'd do with her if we were engaged by Shinra forces at the summit." He didn't want to sound so cold, but there seemed to be no alternative. Tifa, seeming to understand, nodded and they made their way up the last few flights of stairs to the platform, where they found Barret plugging away at a chopper, which in turn was firing back at Barret. Quickly tossing Tifa some fire Materia, Cloud loosed a bolt of lightning at the chopper. Tifa, drawing power from the Materia shot what appeared to be a fiery blast from a dragon. The chopper, seeing the reinforcements, backed off and disappeared behind the huge pillar. Barret, who saw the magic whizzing by from behind, whirled around, still firing his gun, thinking that it was Shinra reinforcements that were trying to get him from behind.

"Hey, stop shooting you idiot!" Cloud yelled as he leapt aside to avoid the spew of bullets from Barret's arm. Barret blinked, not believing his eyes.

"What're _you_?" he drawled, "You, you're s'posed ta be dead, aren't ya?" Cloud smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. He'd forgotten that he was talking to someone with the IQ of a sewer rat.

"No, I'm not dead, as you can clearly see. Now, if you've stopped being an idiot, which I suspect you haven't, we're here to help you," Cloud retorted sharply. Suddenly, he noticed a dark silhouette fiddling with something in the shadows where the controls for the support mechanisms were. Darting past the two, Cloud pounced onto the figure. In the split second that it had to move out of the cleaving cut of Cloud's enormous sword, the suited person leapt out of the darkness, where Barret and Tifa were waiting for him. Nimbly, the person somersaulted backwards, putting more distance between him and the other three. For a few seconds, the opposing sides stared at each other, each side analyzing the situation.

"Who is this guy?" Barret growled, "He looks like he's goin' to a party or somethin'." Getting a good look at him, Cloud suddenly recognized the guy as the Turk he had met at the church.

"He's a Turk," Cloud told Barret coldly, "and probably more skilled than you are." Turning towards the Turk, Cloud said, "Remember me from the church?"

"So, it's you," the aloof opponent drawled as he brandished a baton, which didn't look very menacing at first glance.

"What the hell is _that_ supposed to be?" Barret remarked loudly, "You think you gonna beat us with that stick o' yours?" Instead of responding to Barret's foolish remark in words, the Turk swung his baton towards Barret, loosing an electrical bolt towards him at the best point in the swing. Barret yelped as a couple thousand volts of electricity knocked him backwards. As if it were a signal, Cloud and Tifa rushed towards him. Blocking Cloud's downward cut with his baton and narrowly dodging Tifa's barrage of punches, the opponent managed out, "The name's Reno, think you can beat me now?" With that, he twisted so that Cloud nearly spliced Tifa in half had he not averted his cut so that it swished by harmlessly. With a wary eye, Cloud turned to face his enemy. _Reno_, he thought, _Could it really be him? Wasn't he the one who ranked number 2 in the Turk Academy? I think it was all in the news a few years back…_

Barret, getting up off the ground, turned to shoot Reno from behind. However, he underestimated his opponent's prowess once again. Deftly clipping his temple with his baton, Barret slid once again into a state of dazed stupor. Yet, this little maneuver cost Reno a painful punch in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. Even winded, Reno tripped Tifa, for it was indeed Tifa who had given him such a blow in order to prevent what he suspected to be an even more painful follow-up attack. Swiftly retreating to catch his breath as Tifa crashed to the ground, Reno had to dodge another downward chop from Cloud's enormous sword. Pressed hard by both Tifa and Cloud, Reno struggled to keep his ground. Even one as skilled as he was couldn't stop the dual assault. Though they had not formulated any sort of plan, Cloud and Tifa worked as an almost seamless pair. Actually, it was only Cloud that followed after Tifa's attacks, making it appear to be a follow-up assault. Yet, their repeated barrages could not conquer him. It was a bloodless, though difficult battle as the two sides attacked and defended, neither side giving in to the other. All this time, Cloud wondered where the chopper had gone to Should it return, the tide of the battle would shift to his opponent's side unless Barret got up from his position on the ground. The three fought each other around the main column of the pillar for what seemed to be hours. Reno, knowing that he was going to lose this battle not because of skill but of endurance. The two of them would be able to endure the battle longer than he could. Cloud, seeing Reno's reaction rate slowing down, drove on relentlessly, slashing until the blade became a gray blur. Retreating quickly away from the two, Reno retreated to the bomb he was setting before Cloud and Tifa began their attacks. Quickly punching in a code, Reno glanced over his shoulder to see Cloud's cold eyes with a look of pure fury on his face. Pressing the activation key, Reno completed setting the bomb, but did not manage to bring his baton up in time to block Cloud's downward cut. Finally finding its mark, the sword cut a deep gash in his side. Hearing the sound of the chopper down below, Reno sped towards the edge, with one bloody hand covering the terrible wound in his side.

"You've got nowhere to go!" Yelled Barret, finally waking up from his state of stupor. Aiming his gun at Reno, Barret was about to pull the trigger on his gun when the chopper flew above the level of the platform. Two uniformed soldiers pulled the wounded Turk into the chopper. Ignoring everything else, Barret began to plug away at the chopper, but the bullets did not seem to affect the chopper.

"You don't want to be firing that so recklessly," A black-haired person dressed like a Turk said calmly, "You might hurt our little friend here." He motioned his hand towards a figure next to him.

"Aeris!" Cloud shouted out in surprise, raising his blade in response to the sudden change of circumstances. Seeing that the hostage was important to Cloud, Barret ceased firing too.

"Oh, you are acquainted with each other? Either way, we're beginning to understand each other now," the man laughed softly.

"Don't worry, she's safe," Aeris suddenly yelled at the three. The man made as if to hit her, but stopped inches before contact. He then turned back to Cloud, Tifa, and Barret. "Today has been our lucky day. We get to crush AVALANCHE in a single blow _and_ we get the last Ancient. There is no doubt that we will be well rewarded for our efforts." With a hint of laughter in his voice, he motioned towards the bomb. "By the way, you might want to consider escaping, as your time has been running while we have been having our friendly chat." With that, the chopper soared away from the pillar.

For a second, the three stood rooted to the ground as the man's words sank in. Suddenly, Tifa broke into a mad dash for the panel. "Cloud, I don't know how to stop this thing! You have to come and help!" she called out after staring at the complicated controls for a few seconds. Dreading what the outcome of this might be, he ran over to see what the problem was. One glance told him the situation was hopeless. He'd never even heard of the likes of a bomb like this, not even when he was with Shinra.

"Barret! Find a way down from here! We don't have much time before it blows!" Cloud shouted as he looked for a way down. "There isn't enough time to get down the stairs, so we're going to have to find another way down." Barret, spying a thick steel cable hooked onto the railing, bounded over to it. With a Herculean effort, Barret wrenched the cable free.

"Here, we kin use dis to swing down and outta here!" Barret pronounced proudly, holding up the hook. Cloud looked at the cable, and immediately saw a problem with Barret's proposition.

"Barret, that thing's not going to save us. Swinging from that thing would mean we'd still have to fall about 40 meters!" Thinking hard, Cloud analyzed the situation with the tools they had. If they heated it until the cable became long enough, yet still hold their weight, they might be able to swing down from the platform and through the gate, which looked no bigger than a coin from where they were.

"Quick, Tifa, start heating the cable. I'll try and keep a part of it cool so that we can hold on to it!" Cloud ordered, grabbing the cable away from Barret and focusing ice magic to cool his part of the cable. Tifa, on the other hand, poured fire magic into the rest of the cable, increasing its internal temperature by hundreds of degrees. Sure enough, the rope lengthened to twenty, thirty, then forty meters.

"That's enough for us to go, Barret, you hold on to this end of the cable and we'll climb on top of you," Cloud said quickly, as a deep rumble sounded from within the pillar. Quickly piling on top of Barret, the pillar's supports retracted, causing the pillar and the section of plate above to wobble violently. Explosions broke gargantuan chunks of steel and chunks of stone from the larger pillar right next to it. Taking off as they were showered with pebbles, the three swung through the air, shielding themselves from the rocks as they steered themselves towards the gate. At Cloud's command, Barret let go of the cable so that the momentum they had would carry them through the opening to freedom.


	6. Past and Present

****

Past and Present

They flew through the gate as the upper sector crashed down noisily behind them, flames and sparks spewing from the ruined circuitry. The small playground they had landed in was now shifted several inches away from the gate, but nobody seemed to notice. As soon as Cloud, Tifa, and Barret had picked their bruised and battered bodies off of the ground, they were in a sullen state. They had failed to achieve their goal. They had not only failed to prevent those under the plate from death but also those who lived on top. Never having experienced failure before, Cloud plunked down at the bottom of the pink slide, his head buried in his gloved hands. _How could I have failed?_ Cloud thought to himself. _Could there have been anything I could have done to prevent the pillar's destruction? How could I have let Aeris go?_ Tifa stood anchored to the ground, staring intently at the wreckage as if someone would emerge from the solid mess of steel. Barret, who wasn't quite as quiet as the other two, stood trembling for a second or two, but suddenly broke out in a mad dash towards the wreckage.

"Biggs! Wedge! Jessie!" he screamed hoarsely, smashing his fist against the unmoving metal blockade, "Now, it's the second time that Shinra's screwed things up for me," he whispered furiously to himself, pounding the wall until his knuckles bled. Suddenly, the magnitude of his loss caught up with him. "No, Marlene!" he screamed in renewed fury, yanking on the trigger of his gun. The bullets bounced off of the unrelenting wreck, creating an unbearable noise. When this ceased to work, Barret smashed his head futilely in defeat against what used to be the gate to Sector 7, tears pouring from his eyes. Tifa, broken from her tranquilized state, quickly ran up to him to calm him down.

"Barret, it's all right," Tifa reassured him with no avail, "I'm sure somebody managed to survive the destruction. We'll get back at Shinra for what they did today, don't worry." Barret, still mourning his loss, didn't hear a word about what Tifa said. He shoved her away, signifying that he wanted to be alone. Suddenly, something clicked in Cloud's mind. _Aeris, she said something about someone being safe. Who could she have been talking about?_

"Barret, Marlene's all right," Cloud said suddenly, getting up from his spot on the slide. Immediately, Barret stopped his sobbing and looked over at Cloud, his forehead bruised from his banging it against the gate.

"What? How could that be possible?" Barret exclaimed, clearly stupefied by Cloud's outburst. Cloud turned away and began to walk towards the entrance to the playground, towards Aeris's house, mumbling something inaudibly. "Hey, I'm talkin' to you!" Barret yelled as he ran after Cloud. However, just as Cloud stepped into the Sector 6 Slums, something went off in his head. _They can't have the last of the Ancients because I'm the last of the Ancients. What? How could I be an Ancient? I don't even know what they are!_

"Hey, get a hold of yerself, man!" Barret's voice boomed at him. Wrenched away from his thoughts, Cloud found himself on the ground. _What in the world is wrong with me_?

"Sorry, Barret. I think that Marlene may be at Aeris's house," Cloud said, leading the way through Sector 6. Picking his way through the lumber stacks and crumbling asphalt, Cloud and his party of weary fighters stumbled towards the haven where they hoped to find Marlene.

It was dark by the time they arrived at Aeris's house. Suddenly, Cloud paused before the redwood door, almost afraid to knock on the door. Suddenly, the door opened of its own accord. "Come on in," a tired voice beckoned. Hesitating, Cloud and the others stepped through the doorway, finding themselves in a dimly lit room with Elmyra.

"I guess you already know this," Cloud said, bracing himself for what might come, "but the Shinra have Aeris. We tried to stop them, but they destroyed the entire sector. I couldn't stop them." To his surprise, Elmyra nodded glumly.

"I know," she said quietly, "Aeris came here with a little girl, Marlene her name was, followed by the Shinra. She knew the girl couldn't run away from them, so she told them that she would go if they left Marlene alone."

"Marlene's my daughter, ma'am," Barret said, swallowing as he spoke up, "I'm real sorry about it, and I'll try to get your daughter back here if I can."

"You, her father?" Elmyra spoke, astonished, "How could you leave a little girl alone like that?"

"I know, I know," Barret muttered apologetically, "But I have to do what I gotta do, or else Shinra will suck all the life outta the planet. But I love Marlene, yes I do. I can't stop thinking about her, and when I'm away, I don't know what will happen to her," he rambled.

"I know, and I understand. She's safe for now. You can go see her upstairs, but I want to talk to you all for a bit before you do," Elmyra explained.

"Is it about the Ancients?" Cloud asked, "When I last saw Aeris, the Turks said something about having the last Ancient." Elmyra nodded, "Sort of, but I'd like to start at the beginning, when I first met Aeris."

"It was a long time ago, during the time of the Wutai War. Every man was drafted to go to the front lines. Every day, us women would go and wait at the train station, hoping to see our loved ones return safe. It wasn't until one day that I found a very young mother lying on the steps of the station with a very young Aeris. I'd say that she was about three at the time. The mother said to me, 'Take Aeris somewhere safe and keep her away from Shinra…" It wasn't very long before she passed away," she stopped for a moment to wipe away a solitary tear.

"Anyway, I took care of Aeris for many years, but she was, well, different. You couldn't tell when she was little, when she was around four or five, but when she got older, she would just happen to know things spontaneously."

"Like what?" Cloud asked, puzzled by what she meant by "spontaneous knowledge."

"I remember, when Aeris was six, she ran down the stairs one warm summer evening and told me that someone dear to me had died and that she had spoken to him just before he returned to the planet. At first, I had no idea where she had gotten this idea in her head. I thought that she had been making up stories again. Yet, a week later, I had gotten a notice from Shinra that my husband had been killed during one of the assaults on the capital city," Elmyra continued, trying not to burst into tears from the memories, "And that very fall, Shinra agents came and tried to take her away."

"Turks? The guys in the black suits?" Cloud asked in disgust, the Turks where everywhere something dark and dirty was going on.

"Turks? Yes, I guess that's what they were. Anyway, they said that Aeris was very special, that she was an Ancient. I didn't quite understand why these people were so important and so special, but then they said some really weird stuff. They started describing events that I had indeed observed in Aeris. Knowledge of her quirks really spooked me. I didn't know what to say. They described everything that I found Aeris could do that other children couldn't. Yet, I didn't turn Aeris in to the Shinra, even though they offered me a very large sum of money, enough to make me as rich as the people who live in the mansions on the upper plate."

"What the hell!" Barret roared, "They offered you a sum of money like that and you didn't give Aeris to the Shinra? Either you're one mighty saintly woman or you're outta your mind!"

"Barret, you have to shut up. That has absolutely nothing to do with the story, so keep your mouth shut unless you have something relevant to say," Cloud muttered so softly that only Barret heard.

"No, I'm neither," Elmyra continued solemnly, "I didn't give her over because Aeris tried so hard to hide her unusual attributes. She even shouted to the Shinra agents- Turks I mean, that she couldn't do anything that they said she could. They never came back after that episode, but I think they still suspected she still had the powers of the Ancients. They began to stalk her, follow her. She always managed to escape them until now, and there's nothing I can do to get her out of the Shinra building."

"The Shinra building? That's where they're holding her?" Cloud said sharply, the beginnings of a plan forming in his head.

"Why, yes. The building's seventy floors high isn't it? I know that President Shinra keeps all of the most important labs in the building," Elmyra responded, surprised, "You're not going to attempt an infiltration are you? That would almost be suicide! Nobody but a member of SOLDIER… wait, you were part of SOLDIER weren't you?" Cloud nodded seriously, still deep in thought.

"Wait, if you're gonna infiltrate the Shinra building, I'm with you!" Barret interjected proudly, as if he expected applause from his small audience. He received none. "She saved Marlene, and I'll be damned if I don't do anything to pay her back! Besides, Shinra and me are like wolves and sheep!"

"I'm coming with you two," Tifa piped up quietly, "I've got my own reasons though." When they stared at her, she said quickly, "To keep Barret from going crazy, for example." Cloud remained suspicious, she had some other motive, but there wasn't time to think about something like that right now.

"Say, can you take care of Marlene for a while longer?" Barret asked, pleading with his "poor puppy" look, or at least as close of one he could get. Elmyra rolled her eyes at him, fighting down the urge to burst out with laughter at Barret's hilarious mixture between I-am-useless and I-am-a-fearless-leader look.

"Sure, I wouldn't mind," Elmyra replied, keeping her face straight.

"It's probably not safe to stay in the city though, you had better get out of here," Cloud warned wisely. If Shinra were to retaliate on their infiltration, they would most surely come here to pull some underhanded maneuver. Nodding to the rest of the group, the three warriors headed out of the door in single file. Once outside, Cloud turned to the other two.

"Do you have any idea how in blue hell we're gonna find a way up there?" he asked. Barret simply scratched his head and didn't answer. After a moment, Tifa spoke up, "I'm sure there's gotta be someone in the Wall Market who knows how to get up to the top plate without going through the train stations." Since they had few other options, Cloud decided to go with Tifa's advice. They returned to the Wall Market without much trouble, the large commotion of the falling plate probably spooked monsters and humans alike away from the area.

Upon entering the crowded marketplace, Cloud was about to scream in frustration. Who were they gonna ask to get them to the upper plate? It seemed so unlikely that anybody would even want to go up there, not to mention knowing how to. _At least people are still around_, Cloud thought, amazed at the milling crowds. It seemed as if they didn't notice a huge plate smashing down a couple kilometers away.

"Look, I don't think that we can possibly get through all these people as a group. Let's split up and meet up at the weapons and armor outlet." Cloud suggested. Thus said, Cloud and the rest of his rescue squad spent what seemed like eons elbowing their way through people and asking random bystanders whether they knew how to get to the top plate. When he finally got to their meeting place, he saw Tifa standing alone.

"Has Barret been here yet?" Cloud asked, knowing that Barret was apt to run off and not listen to instructions.

"Yeah, he's gone into the stupid store over there," Tifa said sullenly, "He told me to wait here for you." Cloud rolled his eyes, annoyed but not angry. After all, he did expect Barret to do something stupid like this. Presently, Barret came running out with a new attachment to his arm.

"Check out this awesome AK-47 attachment I got on sale!" Barret sputtered excitedly, seemingly unaware that the AK-47 attachments had been quite popular a couple of centuries ago. When Cloud stared at him, he continued, "Oh, and concernin' the mission thing. Some random guy ran up to me with a message from someone. Apparently some damsel in pain sent him to come find me. Said I'd probably be 'round here or something."

"Well? What did the damn note say?" Cloud asked icily, not mentioning that Barret probably meant to say, "damsel in distress". Barret was bound to forget something critical. Like what exactly was written in the note. Barret pulled out a smeared sheet of paper. In less than perfect handwriting, someone had scribbled: _Train system unsafe. Try going to alleyway next to Don Corneo Mansion for electrical router. Maybe train tracks and other router cables will allow for upward ascent._

Well, what exactly is all this supposed to mean?" Cloud asked Barret, "I think this is pretty bad news. It looks like Shinra knows what we're up to. Who else would know what we're up to?

"I don't know," Barret said hesitantly, "But I got this strange feeling that Jessie's behind all this. It does look somethin' like her handwriting. I just don't know how she got wind that we wanted to get to the upper plate."

"You know, for once in your life, you might actually be right," Cloud mulled, full of thought, "I've only seen Jessie's handwriting just once, so I can't really tell. I'm just wondering how she could have gotten outta there alive."

"Beats me," Barret shrugged, "I don't think it's the Shinra though. They probably think we're already dead."

"Either way, we should check out this alleyway near the Don's Mansion," Tifa suggested wisely, "We don't have much choice. We might as well hurry up on our excursion." With that, the three partners headed off towards the mansion. As they drew towards the mansion, Barret spotted the dark and narrow alleyway that was just barely visible in the dimly lit area. Heading down the alley, they presently found themselves facing a dead end. "Let's see, there should be some kind of thick cable around," Tifa spoke out, her voice unusually loud in the dead silence that accompanied them. Cloud pointed out the thick black cabling that rose out of the ground straight up to the bottom of the plate.

"We're supposed to climb up _that_ thing?" Cloud said incredulously, "It's a little more than a skinny pipe! How's it supposed to hold all of us up?"

"Hey, to you it might be some skinny old pipe," Barret piped up, "But to _me_, it's the golden thread of hope!"

"Barret, I thought I told you not to try and use analogies because they always suck," Cloud grumbled, setting foot onto the bottom of the electrical router. "It seems to be stable enough," he evaluated, setting his full weight on it to see if it would hold without too much swing. Hugging the round cable, they wormed their way up the cable, fearful of what might await them at the top.

"Damn! I sure hope we don't gotta do this all the way up!" Barret complained. It would sure be a pain if they were forced to worm the entire fifty meters through the plate. Soon, however, they appeared on the top of the crumbled wall that used to separate the two sectors. Looking around him, Cloud noticed a long railroad track that looked like it had come down with the plate and was now dangling freely.

"Oh dear God," Barret whined as the wind shook the tracks so violently that it actually swung back and forth as if there were already a heavy weight on the bottom, which was somewhere in the rubble.

"It isn't like we have any choice, do we?" Cloud said reasonably, setting foot on the bottom rung of the ladder the tracks had become. "Come on, it won't be so bad after we get started." Silently following suit, Barret and Tifa slowly placed themselves on the tracks and began their ascent. About a third of the way up, a heavy wind rocked the tracks so violently that Cloud nearly lost his grip on the steel sides. _I hope that this damn thing holds_, he thought. Soon they found themselves immersed in the internal workings of the plate. There wasn't so much rocking anymore, since they weren't in the open. However, now they had to watch out for the slicing fan blades that kept the electronics from overheating. Cloud had the ominous feeling that they would slice the tracks in two, thus sealing their fates. Suddenly, he found himself at the top of the ladder. Crawling safely onto one of the thick tubes of wires that carried power to the city, Cloud stared amazed at how close they had come to practically falling down.

"Shit, look at that," Cloud rasped, pointing at the severed train tracks, "If those rails hadn't become bent so badly, we might never had made it up here. The worst part is that I don't know which way we can go now."

"Well, I don't think there's another set of train tracks that we can take to get to the upper plate," Tifa remarked, staring into the vast workings of the city, "I guess we're going to have to go through all those things in there." She pointed towards the dark area that the tube led to.

"Are you crazy? We don't know whether the tube's gonna drop and send us flying down to our doom!" Barret yelled, receiving a cold stare in response.

"Don't you have a light attachment on your AK-47 attachment?" Cloud inquired, hoping that it did."

"Uh, I dunno. I don't really check out all the technicalities…" Barret grumbled, searching his grafted gun for a switch or button, "I don't see one!" he finally concluded, throwing his hands up in defeat. By some miracle his arm whacked an adjacent tube, and hitting a small switch. Suddenly, bright floodlights illuminated the dark area. "Well, whaddya know! I'm a genius!" Barret pronounced. Cloud took one look into the now bright labyrinth and noticed that the tube curved upwards.

"I guess we found our way up, if you're willing to risk your neck crawling up this damned tube," Cloud said resigned. There wasn't much of an alternative. Barret gulped fearfully, mumbling to himself all the while.

"I swear, I'm never gonna listen to you again," Barret complained as he hugged the tube for dear life and inched his way upwards.

"Oh, stop whining and hurry up," Tifa called up from below, receiving yet another whimper from Barret as she prodded him gently. "You big baby, I didn't know you were scared of heights!" At this, Barret sped up ever so slightly, but it seemed to suffice.

"When are we gonna be able to _walk_ again?" Barret continued, as Cloud disappeared into a tangle of wires. Rather than receiving a response in words, Barret heard a loud screeching noise, like metal being torn apart. "Damn! I didn't sign up to fight something on this damned place!" In saying so, a slop of mud fell on his face. "Whaddya think you're doing?" he roared, as more of the slippery mixture was dumped on his face.

"I've found a way into the upper sewers," Cloud called down, "I thought you might want to know."

"What? You mean this is shit that's fallin' down on my face? I'm coming up, and you'd better not be lying about getting out of this mess!" Barret roared back furiously. Yet, he climbed up faster than anyone had ever seen him climb before, and minutes later, the three were standing in a metal tube of sewage.

"Will you look at that. It's the royal sewage. What a privilege," Tifa joked, "Even the walls are made of titanium alloys. The three picked their way through the waste, looking for something that might lead them to their ultimate destination. Fortunately, the upper class has much more brightly lit sewers than those down below, but it still took them half an hour to find their way to a chrome ladder that led up to a manhole.

"Careful, we wouldn't want to get this far just to be run over by one of those damned motor bikes," Tifa admonished, as they climbed up the ladder.

"Tifa, nobody would be up and driving. It's pretty much midnight about now," Cloud reasoned, as he poked his head up through the manhole. Just as he did so, he heard a deep rumble, and upon turning his head, he saw a speeding motorcycle coming towards him. "Oh shit!" he swore, ducking down below as the bike zipped by.

"Nobody driving, eh?" Tifa smirked, trying to hold in her laughter.

"Well, nobody sensible. I guess those guys up there aren't so sensible after all," Cloud grumbled, pulling himself out of the sewers, "The coast is clear now. Let's get outta this fix." After the three had gotten out of the disgusting sewers, Cloud replaced the covering and looked around.

"Well? Where are we?" Barret asked gruffly, staring down the street. Cloud remained fixed, but looking in the other direction.

"We're right where we need to be," he replied in awe.

"What? The hell does that mean?" Barret roared. Upon turning around, he saw what Cloud meant. They ended up right in front of the great marble staircase that led to the Shinra building. For a moment, all three stood stock still, but after that moment they broke into a run, charging up the stairs. Just when Cloud was going to charge through the double doors, Tifa warned, "Wait! Isn't it better to take some covert way?"

"There isn't one," Cloud said quickly, even though he knew there was a side staircase, "Anyway, let's make some noise."

"Now you're talkin' my language!" Barret yelled, patting his grafted gun.

"Wait a second, I've got an idea on how to get in there with a bang," Cloud said with a devious look on his face, "Now, here's what you gotta do…"


End file.
